muscle health - Hope Clinic Care

Microcurrent electrical stimulation is a technique for treating musculoskeletal pain by using low-level electrical current, where the current is delivered by a particular device to certain parts of your body that are affected. This kind of therapy uses an extremely mild electrical current, which is only one millionth of an ampere. The human body also produces its own current in each cell, making this therapy suitable to treat pain and body aches. So, let’s take a look at the 3 reasons why you should choose microcurrent electrical stimulation therapy for your pain!

Microcurrent electrical stimulation has little to no side effects.

Due to its non-invasive and non-opioid nature, microcurrent electrical stimulation is considered extremely safe for everyone. From children to senior citizens, microcurrent electrical therapy can be effective in treating injured muscles and joints, repair body tissues, reduce inflammation, and eliminate pain without having to consume medicines or go under the knife.

There are, however, some conditions that you need to pay attention to before undergoing microcurrent therapy. Make sure that you are hydrated, drinking plenty of water before your treatment session begins. Furthermore, if you are one of these groups of people, you are unfortunately not suitable for microcurrent electrical therapy.

List of people who should not undergo a microcurrent treatment:

People with pacemakers (small devices implanted in the chest to help control the heartbeat).
People who have uncontrolled seizures.
People with implanted pumps (battery-powered devices that are surgically implanted to provide continuous drug delivery for pain management in patients with non-cancer pain).
Pregnant women.

Microcurrent electrical stimulation improves your body’s ability to repair itself.

As previously stated, the human body produces its own natural current within every cell, which provides intercellular communication through electromagnetic signaling. This signaling is interfered with and the communication is disrupted when your tissues and muscles get injured. So, this is where microcurrent technology plays its role. The low-level electrical current delivered to your affected tissues will help restore your body’s electromagnetic field back to normal, allowing the injured cells to heal. The length of the healing process is different for every individual, some take a longer time to heal than others. The good news is, other than speeding up the process of recovery, microcurrent treatment procedures can also contribute to the prevention of getting similar injuries in the future.

Microcurrent electrical stimulation can be personalized according to your injuries and needs, and it works best when combined with other hands-on therapy and exercise programs.

The frequencies used in microcurrent electrical stimulation differs, depending on the injuries and tissues involved. For every kind of tissue in your body, there is a specific frequency. Moreover, this therapy will not mess with other manual therapy or medications that you have to be under. Instead, microcurrent treatment will support other treatment methods that you require to do, and thus, accelerate your healing process.

Some injuries that microcurrent therapy can treat include:

Arthritis,
Fibromyalgia,
Sports injuries,
Back pain,
Carpal tunnel syndrome,
Tennis elbow,
Muscle sprains and strains,
Post-surgery pain,
Shoulder pain,
Nerve injuries,
And many more.

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This day and age, stress is something that we all experience quite often. Whether we feel stressed out at school, at work, at home, or anywhere else, stress can easily build up over time. Before we know it, our muscles become tense. Worry not, this is where progressive muscle relaxation technique becomes handy! Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is a deep relaxation technique that is mainly used to manage stress, anxiety, insomnia, and muscle tension.

PMR is based on the simple and specific practice of tensing or tightening one muscle group at a time, followed by a relaxation phase by releasing the tension. The purpose is to recognize what a tensed muscle and a relaxed muscle feels like, so that when you begin to become tense due to stress or anxiety, you will realize it quicker and be able to control it and return to a relaxed state.

How does progressive muscle relaxation work, exactly? It’s pretty easy! First and foremost, you need to find a quiet place, free from any distractions. You can start by lying on your back or sitting down. Make sure to remove any glasses or contact lenses if you are wearing them. Loosen any tight clothing, too.

Next, take several slow, deep breaths. Let’s try doing PMR from the bottom part of your body: your feet. Take a deep breath, then pull your toes downward as much as you can to tighten the muscles around that area, and hold them for about five seconds. Afterwards, let go to release the tension. Exhale slowly as you do this step. You should feel your muscles become loose. Shift your focus on the difference between tension and relaxation; remember, it is necessary to notice how different tension and relaxation feels. Remain in this relaxed state for about 15 seconds before working on the next muscle group.

Moving on to the next muscle group: your calves. Squeeze your calf muscles as hard as you can and hold for another five seconds before releasing the tension. Stay relaxed for 15 seconds, then work on your knees and thighs by moving your knees toward each other and squeezing your thigh muscles for five seconds. Like you’ve done before, loosen your muscles afterwards.

The steps are basically the same with every muscle group. You can work on your buttocks, arms, hands, shoulders, jaw, eyes, and eyebrows. With your hands, for example, you can tighten the muscles by clenching and unclenching your fists. With your shoulders, you can raise them toward your ears, and with your eyebrows, you can just raise them as far as you can. Of course, every session needs to end with a tension-release and relaxation.

Now that you get a hang of progressive muscle relaxation, let’s jump into how it can be beneficial in managing stress and anxiety. Progressive muscle relaxation has been proven to be effective in reducing symptoms or feelings of anxiety, depression, stress, and anger. By practicing PMR often, you will learn what relaxation feels like, enabling you to recognize whenever you start to get tense during the day. Progressive muscle relaxation can also improve your sleep and eases neck pain, because it induces relaxation.

But that’s not all! PMR helps decrease the frequency of migraine episodes as well, and it does so by balancing your serotonin levels. Furthermore, a high level of stress might lead to the clenching of jaw or grinding of teeth, which may cause you to develop a temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder. TMJ is the joint that connects your lower jaw (mandible) to your skull, and a temporomandibular joint disorder may cause facial pain, tenderness at the joint, and trouble in moving the joint. Through a consistent practice of progressive muscle relaxation, tension or stress levels can be reduced and TMJ disorder symptoms will be alleviated.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a simple practice, yet it turns out to have many benefits! So, if your days are filled with fast-paced activities, or if you tend to get stressed a lot, we recommend you to set aside some quiet time to do the PMR method regularly as one way to improve or maintain your overall well-being. Your body, and your mind, will definitely thank you!

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We probably think that seniors and lifting weights are an unlikely combination. However, as we get older, our physical bodies will naturally experience changes. Our bones may shrink in size and density, our muscles may lose strength and flexibility as well. On average, after you reach the age of 50, your muscle tone declines by 15 percent per decade, leaving you more susceptible to poor balance. Staying active and lifting weights can help slow down the weakening process of your muscles and bones. How? Well, here are the 3 reasons why strength training is important for seniors!

Strength training develops stronger bone mass and slows down the pace of age-related muscle loss (also known as sarcopenia).

Sarcopenia occurs faster once you’ve reached the age of 75, and its symptoms include muscle weakness and loss of stamina. There are several factors that cause sarcopenia (source: https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/guide/sarcopenia-with-aging), which are:

Reduction in nerve cells responsible for sending signals from the brain to the muscles to start movement.
Lower concentrations of some hormones, including growth hormone, testosterone, and insulin-like growth factor.
A decrease in the ability to turn protein into energy.
Not getting enough calories or protein each day to sustain muscle mass.

Weight and resistance training can delay this process by improving endurance, developing range of motion, converting protein to energy, and increasing lung capacity. It also helps with your hormones and neuromuscular system.

Strength training helps provide pain relief, especially for those dealing with arthritis.

By strengthening the muscles, tendons, and ligaments around your joints, weightlifting can significantly improve your range of motion. It can minimize your pain as well by increasing the strength of muscles surrounding the afflicted joint, which eases stress on the joint itself.

Strength training helps you to maintain your independence in doing daily activities and improves your overall well-being.

When you commit to a strength training program, it will improve your endurance and ability to walk. This is important because among seniors, insufficient leg strength is a powerful predictor of future disabilities. Your endurance comes in handy to maintain your independence as well, so that you won’t need to completely rely on other people to do day-to-day activities, such as getting up from a chair, carrying groceries, etc. Weight and resistance training is not only beneficial for your physique, but for your mental health and mood, too! You will feel good about yourself, you can sleep better, and it’s less likely for you to develop depression.

Before jumping in, however, it’s important to talk with a doctor first. Make sure that the workout and exercise program you want to do is suitable for you based on your health conditions and fitness status. Consulting with a healthcare professional will help you determine which exercises to include or avoid to keep your strength-based workouts safe.

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+1 480 659 5470

15030 N Hayden Rd ste 120, Scottsdale, AZ 85260 United States

info@hopecliniccare.com

Sign up for Hope Clinic newsletter to receive all the news offers and discounts from Hope Clinic.

www.facebook.com/hopecliniccare

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Hope Clinic Care

Copyright by Hope Clinic 2023. All rights reserved.

Copyright by Hope Clinic 2023. All rights reserved.