A joint is where two or more bones meet and it is important to know how to keep them healthy and strong because damage to the joints is often extremely painful and sometimes irreversible. Extreme joint pain can aggravate and lead to long-term conditions such as arthritis. The good news is there are plenty of steps you can take to keep your joints as healthy and mobile as possible. *
Keeping your joints healthy and strong can help you stay active.
As you age, the cartilage around your joints can wear or break down. This can trigger arthritis, a joint disorder that causes pain and stiffness due to inflammation of one or more joints. However, you can take steps to protect your existing cartilage and relieve joint pain possibly delaying or easing arthritis. *
1) Keep moving
This does not necessarily mean ‘exercise’ but staying seated in the one position for hours on end particularly if you have a desk job puts us at a higher risk of experiencing joint pain. Even getting up from your desk and having a short walk every hour or so can benefit us. Staying active helps to increase strength and flexibility in the joints as well as in the muscles that surround the joints. *
Low-impact exercise such as walking, swimming, cycling and strength training is the best type of exercise for your joints. Exercise can help your joints stay mobile and assist with weight maintenance and weight loss which has further flow on benefits to joint health. Strong muscles and strong bones also provide support and stability to your joints. * Incorporating strength training into your routine can help build muscle to keep your joints safe and mobile. Core-strengthening exercises are also a great inclusion into your routine, as a strong core can help with posture and alignment, and prevent problems with balance, falls, and other accidents that can cause joint damage. When doing any type of exercise, protect your joints by taking it slow, especially at first. *
Physical activity encourages circulation of the synovial fluid which allows bones to move past one another more smoothly. What is more, exercise triggers a biological process to called autophagy which involves the removal of damaged cells in the joint. *
Now, we completely understand that exercise is probably the last thing we want to do if we have sore and achy joints. However, doing exercise that involves minimal weight-bearing such as swimming or briskly walking can do our joints the world of good without further aggravating the pain. *
2) Drink water
Cartilage is kept lubricated by a liquid known as synovial fluid, and in fact our cartilage is approximately 60% made from water. As a result, it is essential that we keep hydrated when our joints are damaged. *
If we do not, the production of our synovial fluid will be reduced, and we increase our risk of friction pain and cartilage deterioration. Drinking water can help to improve your joint health and lessen pain caused by conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and gout. Find out more about the benefits of drinking water for your muscles and joints here. *
3) Maintain a healthy weight
This sounds simple, but for many people, staying at a healthy weight is difficult. But because our joints are weight-bearing, maintaining an optimum weight is important to our mobility and overall health. Along with high blood pressure, diabetes risk, heart problems and all the other things we know come with carrying excess weight, it also puts extra strain on our knees, hips, spine, etc. *
Being overweight leads to faster wear and tear of the joints. By being overweight, your back, hips, knees, ankles, and feet are working overtime. Your healthcare provider can educate you on safe ways to lose weight, which can decrease the extra stress on your joints. Generally, changing your eating habits is a good way to start your weight loss journey. *
4) Build muscle
Muscles take the load off your joints, so if you do not have enough muscle to support your body weight and carry you through your day-to-day activities you may find that your joints take the hit instead. Again, you do not need to go to the gym and pound out a super intense workout simple weight bearing exercises can do the trick. *
Try to focus on strengthening the muscles around the hip and knee joints as these are the joints that need to support the entire body weight. It is pretty common to experience knee or hip pain as a result of tightness in the surrounding muscles, such as the adductors or quadriceps, so relieving tightness here can sometimes alleviate joint pain. *
Building strength in your core can help you stay balanced and makes falls that can damage the joints less likely. *
5) Right Diet
Our diet is important when it comes to our joints because what we eat can impact how our joints feel some foods can help to protect our joints whilst others can make joint pain worse. Inflammation is our body’s way of healing and repairing itself as well as protecting itself from foreign invaders such as viruses and bacteria. When we eat highly processed, artificial foods that are not natural and found in nature it comes as no surprise that our body recognizes these foods as foreign too. *
Eating inflammatory foods such as sugar, dairy, saturated fats, and meat can aggravate joint pain whilst foods that are anti-inflammatory such as fruit, vegetables and whole grains can help to prevent joint pain caused by inflammation. *
Boosting your calcium intake can also help to look after your joint health. Calcium is a mineral that helps our bones to stay strong and minimizes our risk of developing brittle bone disease (osteoporosis). Our body continually removes small amounts of calcium from our bones and replaces it with new calcium. If our body removes more calcium than it replaces our bones become weaker and more prone to breaking. *