We’ve all felt muscle aches at least once in our life. Usually, muscle aches are the result of physical activity, or just feeling of tiredness. But nutritional deficiencies, hormonal changes, stress, and dehydration can also cause muscle aches. Experiencing discomfort in your muscles is nothing new. The trick is how to handle muscle aches? And even better, can you prevent muscle aches?
Every part of our body is composed of muscle tissue. Therefore, you can feel muscle aches basically anywhere on your body.
What are the medical explanations for muscle aches? Some of them include statin drugs, flu symptoms, Lyme disease, and hormonal changes. It is just common for people to try sleep, rest, and relax when they feel aches in their muscles. Your first reaction should be to stretch as well.
But in addition to relaxing, stretching, and relieving pain, there are some other ways you can treat and prevent muscle aches. Some of them include foods, and some of them include alternative medicine, like essential oils, for example.
Remedies for Muscle Aches
When you think of relieving muscle aches, you think of foods first. Here are some foods that will help.
Magnesium
The recommended dosage of magnesium is 500mg per day, split into two daily intakes. Magnesium is widely known as the relaxation mineral. Magnesium helps your muscle relax, and soothe the pain from muscle aches.
You can source magnesium from nuts, seeds, leafy green veggies, and wild meats. If you cannot source it from your diet, there are always magnesium supplements you can try.
Potassium
When it comes to muscle aches, potassium is an underrated mineral. Another mineral that helps with muscle relaxation, potassium is an electrolyte that keeps you hydrated. When you are dehydrated, potassium is one of the minerals they give you at the ER, along with magnesium.
You can source potassium from avocado, coconut, tomatoes, and melons. The recommended dosage is 300mg per day, and deficiency of potassium often leads to cramping.
Calcium
Known as the bone mineral, calcium also helps your muscles relax. Calcium and magnesium go hand in hand, as each of the minerals helps your body absorb the other more easily. That means that without calcium, your body will not digest magnesium properly. You can find calcium in greens like kale, spinach, collard greens, yogurt and other dairy products. You will need a bit more calcium than other minerals, or 1000mg per day split into two doses.
Electrolyte Drinks
We mentioned that potassium is an electrolyte. But for preventing and treating muscle aches, you need electrolyte drinks as well. These include coconut water and watermelon juice. They will replace all of the lost electrolytes. And if you didn’t know, you lose electrolytes when you sweat.
Essential Oils
I mentioned essential oils as an alternative medicine at the beginning. They are one of the most effective natural treatments for muscle aches. Essential oils provide fast relief, and some of the best include peppermint, cypress oil, eucalyptus, lavender, and rose. Mix any of them with the carrier oil, and then massage your sore muscles. You will feel the pain and soreness fading away instantly as you massage your area.
Water
You all know the golden rule of 8 glasses of water per day. Water is crucial for your muscles. You need water to keep your muscles hydrated and prevent soreness. If you are physically active, you should even increase the 8 glasses of water per day rule.
Stretching and Warming Up
This is a remedy many people forget to use. Stretching and warming up before and after exercise is the best way to prevent muscle aches. Cramping is often a result of too much stress on your muscles as a result of overworking without stretching.
Green superfood powder
When you want to take things to the next level, you can always consume some of the green superfood powder like spirulina. They provide the excellent amount of minerals for muscle relaxation.
Foods to avoid
In addition to remedies for muscle aches, I would like to give you some guidelines and tips for which foods to avoid. There are foods that help with muscle aches, and there are foods that worsen the condition. The latter cause dehydration, which is the absolute nightmare for your muscles.
Avoid soda drinks, as they promote loss of minerals and make your cramping worse. Avoid sugar in any form, as sugar removes calcium from your body. You should avoid packaged foods that are deficient in minerals and they are just “empty calories”. Last, but not least, you should absolutely remove alcohol and coffee from the equation. These two always lead to dehydration.
