Injuries happen. Back, shoulder, knee injuries are common and, when living an active life, often unavoidable. The question is: after they happen, how can you help the body heal?
For most athletes and fitness professionals, the idea that nutrition and supplements can play a powerful role in injury recovery makes perfect sense. Yet when injury strikes, very few know exactly how to use nutrition and supplements to improve healing.
As a health coach, I always stress the importance of supporting your body’s healing process through food and good quality supplements. In this blog I will show you some best practices for using nutrition and supplements, in addition to therapy, to dramatically speed up the injury recovery process.
1. Controlling inflammation
Any injury produces inflammation. Although this is a crucial part of the natural healing process, it provides a big challenge for your immune system, which is heavily dependent on lots of nutrients, vitamins and minerals to provide effective protection.
We’ve all heard about anti-inflammatory foods. They help your body boost your immune system and help fight pathogens.
Some of the best anti-inflammatory foods are:
- Leafy greens: kale, spinach, arugula, mesclun mix
- Fruit: oranges, wild blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cherries, grapes
- Vegetables: sweet potato, winter squash, tomatoes, asparagus, broccoli
- Sea vegetables like dulse, kelp, and nori,
- Sesame seeds.
Another part of controlling inflammation is making sure you reduce or stop the inflammatory foods. Your injury cam become worse if you’re feeding the inflammation.
Some of the most inflammatory foods are:
- eggs,
- dairy,
- gluten,
- pork
- corn
2. Rebuilding injured tissue
Your body has a natural ability to rebuild injured tissue but it’s up to us to give our body the fuel to do it. Two of the most important components to rebuilding after injury are mineral salts and glucose. Mineral salts are mostly found in leafy greens and green vegetables like celery and broccoli. The best quality glucose is found in fruit, coconut water, honey and starchy vegetables like potatoes, sweet potatoes and squashes.
3. Speeding up healing with supplements
Certain supplements help injuries to heal more quickly and effectively, target inflammation, and/or strengthen the immune system.
Best supplements for injuries are:
- B12,
- Zinc,
- Vitamin C,
- MSM,
- Curcumin,
- Lemon Balm,
- Orgono G5 Siliplant silica,
- Nettle Leaf,
- Magnesium Glycinate,
- Spirulina,
- Cat’s Claw,
- Olive Leaf
- Plant Based Omega 3s
Injuries happen every day and they are a normal and common part of life. We have the tools to help our body recover from those injuries quicker. In addition to therapy, nutrition and supplements can dramatically speed up the healing process so you can go back to enjoying your life pain free.
Suffering From an Injury and Looking to Get Our Help?
Within our office, we offer expert advice tailored to your life-changing health issue for FREE, in under 30 minutes.
In one of your free taster sessions, you will get the opportunity to speak to one of your friendly team members in a relaxed environment on a 1-1 basis and discover:
What is the underlying cause of your injury?
Why it’s taking so long to heal?
Roughly, how long will it take to fix my problem?
Our taster sessions are great for anyone that may be “unsure” if sports massage or health coaching are right for them, and they give you the opportunity to ask questions and see for yourself if we can help you.
To arrange a FREE taster session give us a call at 703-982-0006.
Best Wishes,
Ania Gackowska