This month, we are continuing our series of informational blogs authored by guest writers doing business in our community. Our goal is to equip our readers with varied and quality information, promote careers in Hiawatha, and spotlight our guest writers and their local business. Our January blog has been guest authored by Melissa White. Melissa is the founder of Balanced Fitness & Health, which houses a team of physical and occupational therapists that specialize in providing care that goes above and beyond to help find individual solutions to pain. They are located at 2200 Heritage Green Drive, Hiawatha, IA 52233.
Having been in a serious car accident and having had surgeries, I know how hard it is to recover from being injured. It can take a long time to get back to normal. The discomfort can cause you to avoid activities you used to enjoy. That’s why in 2015, I started Balanced Fitness & Health after seeing the growing need in healthcare to bring the focus back to individuals and give them the care and guidance that they deserve. At Balanced Fitness & Health, we are a team of physical and occupational therapists that specialize in providing care that goes above and beyond to help find individual solutions to pain. We wanted to share a few of our tips to start getting you out of pain today!
Increasing Movement
The process of recovering and getting yourself out of pain starts with increasing your movement, in the right way. If you think about it, our bodies are made to move. Think about how kids play—crawling, climbing, swimming, splashing, rolling around, throwing balls. As adults, we lose so many of these opportunities to move. Many of us sit all day and wonder why we’re stiff, why our backs hurt or why we have digestive problems. Others work in factories, doing the same motions over and over again, never breaking their bodies out of those repetitive motions.
Movement is so important. Our physical therapists see people every day who haven’t been moving enough. Their pain and stiffness is proof that you must move it or lose it! It’s never too late for you to focus more on movement and its benefits.
Simple Tips to Move More
How can we find ways to move our bodies through all of the motions they are capable of so we can stay flexible and agile? Here are a few ideas for incorporating more movement into your day:
- Warm-up before working. Try these stretches.
- If you sit, set an alarm to get up and move throughout the day. Download the free Big Stretch Reminder for Windows.
- Have a 4-minute dance party with your kids.
- Stretch your body and limbs gently on a regular basis.
- Work out on different machines, not just treadmills and ellipticals.
Nutrition & Hydration
Another great way to enhance your health is through improved hydration and nutrition. We can’t expect to feel good if we put junk into our bodies. The biggest thing you can do to take a step towards a healthier and pain-free body is to increase your water intake up to the right level. Our bodies are made up of 60-70 percent water; our muscles, joints, and brains all need it to function at the optimal level.
The recommended amount of water for your body is half of your body weight in ounces! This means if you weigh 200 lbs, you need to drink 100 ounces of water—that’s about six 16-ounce bottles of water each day.
As far as nutrition, what foods you put into your body fuel your body. So try to shop the sides of the grocery store and stay away from processed and packaged foods. These foods have added chemicals and a lot of the nutrients have been depleted from them, which leaves your body without the proper nutrients it needs to function at its best. When we eat foods that are processed or full of chemicals we can start an inflammation process that leads to an increase in pain and leaves you feeling sluggish and without energy, which leads to less movement.
Read further about shopping locally and organically to help reduce inflammation in your body.
We would LOVE to help you get BACK to being YOU!
So if you have an old injury, pain or ache that you’ve given up trying to fix, we would love to talk and see how we can help you get out of pain and back to being you. Feel free to contact Balanced Fitness & Health to learn more, and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube for quick and easy ways to stay healthy, happy and more balanced.