Ice is for injuries, and heat is for muscles. Roughly.
Ice is for injuries — calming down damaged superficial tissues that are inflamed, red, hot and swollen. The inflammatory process is a healthy, normal, natural process … that also happens to be incredibly painful and more biologically stubborn than it needs to be. Icing is mostly just a mild, drugless way of dulling the pain of inflammation… we hope.
Heat is for muscles, chronic pain, and stress — taking the edge off the pain of whole muscle spasms and trigger points, or conditions that are often dominated by them, like back pain and neck pain), for soothing the nervous system and the mind.
Below are great ways to use Ice and heat.
Ice / Cold
A bag of frozen peas is great apart from they are to cold to put directly onto the skin and therefore you need to wrap them in a tea towel which often masks the cold from getting through.
So the best way we suggest is get a bowl of COLD water with ice, place a flannel or tea towel in the water and completely submerse it. Then rinse it out and place it on the area in question. Leave it on the area for no longer than 5mins.
Heat / Warmth
Taking a warm bath with epson salts is a great way to thoroughly warm the muscles and the epson salts are a great natural muscle relaxer whilst also helping to draw out toxins. Ensure its warm and not scalding hot! Because if you have any inflammation in the muscles the excessive heat can serve to exacerbate it.
Another way is a bowl of HOT water, place a flannel or tea towel in the water and completely submerse it. Then rinse it out and place it on the area in question.
Also Wheat bags and hot water bottles work well on certain areas.
