Sometimes when I’m doing things that require endurance, my fullest strength, or my last bit of energy, afterwards I can be left feeling sore, hurt, or outright exhausted. But instead of taking Ibuprofen, effectively shutting down my body's own recovery response, I do one or all of these 3 Time-Honored Alternatives to Taking Ibuprofen. While the immediate fix may not be as noticeable, the resistance that is built up by doing these alternatives keeps my need for pain intervention at a minimum and my overall pharmaceutical usage at nil.
"True healing doesn't come from doing nothing, it comes form doing everything." AZ
3 Time-Honored Alternatives to Taking Ibuprofen
Some of this I’m sure you’ve heard before, so I’ll save you some pain and be swift. Here are 3 ways I typically deal with pain whenever I find myself in it…
Option 1: Adjust your Diet
Inflammatory foods can cause whatever pain you're having to hurt even worse.
Anti-inflammatory foods on the other hand, help to relieve pain. But not only that, they also simultaneously feed your body the nutrition that is needed to have a successful recovery. Can't say that about Ibuprofen.
Option 2: Be RICE to yourself
This universal recipe works to help reduce the sensation of pain in the body. If no ice is available, see Option 3.
What's unorthodox about this?
R. Don't just sit there doing nothing, recover. Do physical therapy, massage, yoga. Do exercises to keep other parts of your body in shape. This can also distract you from your pain for a while, keep you from getting constipated, and help your hormones stay balanced during recovery.
I. Don't just put a bag of ice cubes on your pain point, cool your entire body with healing foods that soothe pain and remove inflammation, such as: avocado, cherries, garlic, or aloe vera.
C. Don't just wrap your pain point and try to forget about it, compress your focus into healing it. With the concentration of a yogi master, envision the inflammation leaving your body - as tiny splinters that much like a real splinter, are so small but causing so much pain. Now imagine that the food you just ate is filling the void with a cool, supple gel that much like Neosporin, is coating your wound from the inside. Now, compress your hands, summon a feeling of gratitude to be alive, and thank your body for letting you know that something was wrong in the first place.
E. Don't just lay on the couch with your leg on a pillow, crying until you can get back in the game. Keep your spirits elevated and tell yourself the reasons why you need this pain to go away, or why you need to reach a place of healing.
Option 3: Embrace the Brutality
This 3rd option I originally learned from TBW Productions who urges us to Embrace the Brutality. And I gotta say, I couldn’t agree with him more. Whenever I’m in pain, I see it as a chance to test my grit, to sit in the aftereffects of what it means to go big, and to let my body know that it needs to get stronger.
Now I’m not saying that I run towards pain, but I don’t necessarily run away from it either. I see pain for what it is, a sensation that lets my body know that something is wrong. If I numb that sensation with Ibuprofen then just keep going about my day, how will my body know that something’s wrong? And how will it have time to heal itself?
In Summary:
Painful times are the reason I always have an extra sack of rice in my resupply bag, just in case I do push it too hard or genuinely get hurt and unexpectedly need to layover somewhere for few days until I’m healed enough to continue.
Whenever I'm in pain, but don't want to take an Ibuprofen, I:
Eliminate inflammatory foods from my diet and increase my intake of anti-inflammatory foods
Be RICE to myself
Embrace the Brutality
How do you deal with pain during adventures?
Leave a comment below, I’d love to know…