Heat therapy and cold therapy

Heat Treatment Characteristics

Heat, applied externally onto someparts of the body, is known to be quite good for our health. Used asa means of pain and injury removal since times immemorial, thisremedy system is concerned effective even today. Heat is known tostop our muscles from getting into involuntary spasms. Also, heat isthought to stimulate our organism's endorphin production. Endorphinsare our body's natural painkillers. Exposing your muscles to heat ofabout 40 degrees Celsius is proven to relax them and help in anyrecovery processes. However, heat should not be used while treatinginfections or inflammations since it is known to relax blood vesselsmaking things worse.

Cold Treatment Characteristics

Applying cold to any troublesome orpainful spot will surely result in decrease of pain and irritation.Therefore, people have been using this method for such purposes formany years. Coldness make parts of our body numb, thus deactivatingpain sensors in them, creating an illusion of pain cessation.Moreover, it also reduces swelling and stimulates the relaxation ofmuscles. This trait makes cold more useful in situations such asinflammations. Namely, it reduces the capacity of blood vessels,making one's wound much less prone to infections. Finally, eventhough heat is known to help with lower back pain if noticed early,cold, especially cold compression, is able to reduce and remove backpain even after it has troubled an individual for a longer timeperiod.

Thus, cold exposure and coldcompression seem to be a better way of treating injuries and healthproblems. Nevertheless, experts claim that this method should not beused for more than 10 or 15 minutes. Longer exposure will prevent theregeneration of our organism, reducing the healthy effect of the coldexposure. Of course, bear in mind that people who have more body fatneed more time to get coldness through them. Therefore, based on one'sweight and fat accumulation, choose proper exposure time carefully inorder to get the most out of this therapy.

Finally, not every cold exposure hasthe same effect. The best way of using cold to your health advantageis to place small parts of ice into a plastic bag and apply it ontothe troublesome spot. Ice cubes have a similar effect and may bewrapped in a piece of clean cloth. On the other hand, the artificialsources of coldness as well as cold gases or chemicals are all unableto deliver this excellent effect.