Before using a heating pad checkout these heating pad benefits that might help you in getting fast relief.
A heating pad or a hot bag is an invention for thermotherapy. If we define it precisely, it’s a pad that gives warmth to our body parts, which in turn provides relief to aching portions, be it some knee pain, stiff joints, or even an abdomen pain during menstruation. It’s a pack that contains some liquid or gel that heats up, and that’s how it gets ready to comfort you. It can be electrical, chemical, or one can add some hot boiling water in it. Electric heating pads have an insulated wire attached to a piece of fabric, and it heats up when you plug it in, whereas a chemical heating pad heats up when exposed to air. It acts like an iron that reacts to oxygen, which is called an exothermic reaction. Another kind of chemical pad is that which contains sodium acetate; after heating, it becomes supersaturated.
Let’s discuss heating pad benefits
1. Body Stiffness
Sometimes, unintentionally, we tend to sleep in a wrong posture or position. This can aggravate intense back or neck pain. This may also curb the blood circulation of several parts. One of the primary and obvious problems that happen due to sleeping in the wrong position is body stiffness. It provides a feeling of discomfort and irritation because it becomes a barrier to doing any physical task. The heating pad relieves body stiffness and lets you be healthy. Don’t worry if you don’t have a heating pad, a substitute to it is taking a hot shower or give yourself comfort by relaxing in a hot tub. It helps you reduce muscle pain and increase blood flow.
2. Muscle Tightening
If you are a sporty person, you might suffer from tightening of muscles, which can halt your workout. To put your muscles back to being soft, heating pads play a significant role. It helps you to increase flexibility and reduces stiffness from that particular area.
3. Menstruation and Pregnancy
During menstruation, women get cramps and abdomen pain that becomes nearly unbearable sometimes. Using a heating pad over the stomach and abdomen helps in relaxing the muscles of the uterus and regulates the blood flow. As long as you take necessary precautions, you can use the heating pad during pregnancy too. Just keep the temperature below 100 degrees F and not use it for more than 10-15 minutes. But doing so would help you relax your muscles.
4. Muscle Soreness
We exercise, and sometimes, due to any change in the situation or circumstances, we stop doing it. Even sometimes, we over-exert ourselves. This can cause soreness in any part of the body. The heating pad can help terminate that soreness.
5. Injury
The heating pads can heal any acute injury which can occur from falling or getting any sprain or nerve-pull from it. Doing hot water fomentation to it gives relief to the pain. Besides, if you get any boils due to some reasons, using a heating pad over that portion helps in the extraction of pus from that wound. Therefore heating pads are beneficial.
6. Winter Usage
Using heating pads in winters can relax the exposed body parts like feet, hands, fingers, etc. and thus gives massive relief. It helps in easing stress and tension, too, because warmth has always been an amazing cure to a variety of things in our body.
7. Bowel Movement
Heating pads over the abdomen helps in the relaxation of muscles over that area, too, hence, satisfying the bowel movement. So, it may help you to excrete smoothly without facing any problem in the morning.
Things To Remember:
- You must not lie on the heating pad, instead keep it on the body part as lying on it would either burst it or lead to any other disastrous consequences.
- Don’t apply it for more than 20 minutes as it may burn your skin. Moreover, using it for a limited time can produce a better result.
- Set the temperature according to your needs and comfort. Don’t tolerate excessive hot temperatures. Just keep it warm instead of hot.
- During pregnancy, if you increase the temperature of the pad, it may cause birth abnormalities. Also, don’t sleep using it because we tend to forget to remove it while sleeping.
- Most importantly, do not use the heating pads just after an injury happens or after any activity when the body is already heated up naturally. Moreover, do not use it on a swollen portion because the bleeding in the tissue causes the swelling, so heat draws more blood.
- Usage of electric heating pads can be a bit dangerous because excess use of it can cause skin cancer, decrease fertility in men, and detroit women’s conditions during pregnancy.
We hope that these heating pad benefits will help you in relaxing yourselves and always keep in mind the precautions to avoid mishaps. In case you know any other heating pad benefits then you can reach out to us via email or Pinterest.