This is where we share our favorite tips, tricks, secrets, and ways to "think like a healthy person" so that you can find your own delicious path to healthy living.
"Feel-Good Mondays" are meant to help us get back into that place of feeling energized, nourished, and ready to take inspired action for the week ahead.
If you experience chronic pain, you’re probably familiar with reaching for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) like ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or aspirin for relief. While those drugs do provide quick alleviation of pain and discomfort, they don’t address the root of what’s causing the pain.
What’s more, taking frequent doses of NSAIDs (more than once per month) can lead to serious, concerning side effects over time (wearing down the stomach lining, gastrointestinal damage, increased blood pressure, increased risk of heart disease, and major wear and tear on the liver).
NSAIDs are synthetic and the body has to process and detoxify them. I don’t recommend long-term use, if you can avoid it.
Thankfully, there are great alternatives that we use with our clients (and that I personally use!) that do amazing work at alleviating pain without nasty side effects.
In this week’s series on Natural Pain Management, I explore natural alternatives that you can reach for when something hurts!
1) Discover the root cause. No matter what we take for pain relief, nothing can work as well as discovering the root cause of our discomfort. In our practice, we often see food sensitivities, chronic stress, vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and inflammatory foods as being the main culprits behind the pain.
2) Magnesium to the rescue! To know me is to know that I love nature’s relaxation mineral. Many of us are deficient in magnesium, which can lead to issues like chronic pain/soreness, constipation, headaches, and insomnia. Opt for the right magnesium for your specific concern. Mag glycinate is very gentle on the stomach (great for anyone who has a sensitive belly), mag citrate is particularly helpful for constipation, and mag taurate has the stress-relieving amino acid l-taurine, making it particularly helpful for relaxation.
1) Terrific turmeric! In particular, the compound curcumin (which gives turmeric its beautiful orange color) is responsible for turmeric’s powerful anti-inflammatory effects. While adding turmeric to your food is always recommended, we usually find that higher doses or curcumin (like those found in supplement form) are more effective at pain management. Not all curcumin supplements are the same. At Moss Wellness, we highly recommend Meriva by Thorne Research. It’s a very high-potency, patented form of curcumin that works wonder for pain relief and reducing overall inflammation (for everything from back pain to menstrual cramps to autoimmune disease).
You can feel good every day. And we’re here to support you.
Love,
P.S. Did you get a chance to check out my series on deconstructing cravings?
