How to Protect Your Hands to Conduct Your Life
By Sandy Schroeder
Our hands really help us conduct life, just as a symphony conductor summons music from his orchestra.
Think about all of the movements that hands make every day. Reaching for the alarm, struggling into a robe, cooking breakfast, making coffee, and feeding the dog happen early. Then hands are needed to drive to work, fly across a keyboard, or hold an audience’s attention in a key presentation. Much later, there is a drive home, gym workout and dinner to prepare, followed by baths, books and bedtime. The list is endless, and your hands do it all.
Protecting your hands is serious business. The hand's complex network of tendons, ligaments, nerves, joints and bone can be susceptible to accidents, age or illness, according to Harvard Health.
How Healthy Are Your Hands?
What do your hands need right now?
- Exercise to remain strong and healthy
- Relief from pain
- Relief from stiffness and soreness
One in 5 American adults have arthritis with ongoing pain and disability. To keep your hands healthy, start with your issues. See your doctor and your chiropractor if you have a serious hand, wrist, or arm injury or just need to find out what is going on with intermittent pain or stiffness.
The Joint Chiropractic clinic near you can help you find the right approach. The Joint's doctors of chiropractic help people of all ages deal with health, wellness and fitness every day. Together, with your doctor, the three of you may shape an ongoing program to fit you.
What Do Your Hands Do?
If you type on a computer, grip tools in a lab or work at home, sewing, gardening and cleaning, repetitive motions can cause pain as muscles shorten and tighten. Gentle stretches can help to ease tight forearms and soothe tendonitis. (Get your doctor’s approval before beginning any new exercise.)
Here’s a sample stretch from Harvard Health. Hold 15 to 30 seconds. Rest for 30 seconds and repeat. Never stretch to the point of pain
Wrist Stretch
- Hold hand at chest level with elbow bent
- Use other hand to grip thumb side of hand and bend wrist down
- To stretch more bend wrist toward little finger
- Repeat exercise with a straight arm
- Switch hands and repeat
Your hands are among your most valuable tools, so be sure to do all you can to ensure they serve you as long as, and as well as, possible.
To learn more about your health, wellness, and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Tempe, Ariz.