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Hot and cold therapy are only two of many forms of physical treatment, generally used to alleviate injury effects, hasten their recovery and reduce the severity of chronic conditions. They also reduce the chances of future injury and improve health in several ways. While physiotherapists recognize both therapies globally, you might still wonder how, when and where to use each when treating yourself at home.
This brief outlines how best to carry out each therapy, the ideal timing of their use for injuries and physical conditions and where heat and cold are most effective on or in your body.
To apply hot or cold therapy effectively, you must first know what each is.
You use hot therapy, commonly known as thermotherapy or heat therapy, by applying heat to an afflicted area to alleviate its symptoms therapeutically. Applying a hot pack to an injury or spending time in a sauna to improve a condition conducts thermal energy, prompting a physiological response — an increase in blood flow, which delivers more oxygen and nutrients to the area’s muscles, effectively reducing pain and easing spasms around injured joints.
Cold therapy takes several forms, with ice packs, cooling spray or cold gel application and other cryotherapy — cold water showers and immersion or ice baths — used to alleviate the effects of injuries or conditions. Applying cold to your injured area decreases blood flow to reduce swelling and inflammation, while slowing pain signals to your brain through your nerves, restricting the buildup of inflammatory chemicals.
Knowing how, when and where to apply heat or cold to your body is essential, as doing it wrong could worsen a condition or delay its healing process.
With several cold therapies proving popular in acute injury treatment, or for maintaining general health and wellness, these are some of the more popular therapy forms.
These are popular and effective for inflamed and swollen acute injuries, such as strains, sprains or muscle pulls. Use an ice or cold pack as soon as possible after the injury and continue periodic application three times daily within the first 48 hours. This period is likely when inflammation, bruising and swelling occur most. Ice numbs the afflicted tissue, easing pain and slowing the inflammation process.
Keep material, like a cloth or towel, between the pack and your skin and apply it to the required area for a maximum of 20 minutes per session. If you don’t have a professional ice pack, a bag of frozen corn or peas, or ice blocks from your freezer wrapped in a towel will work.
Taking a cold shower or immersing yourself in cold water activates short-term stressors that train your body’s immune system resilience levels to better cope with injuries and infections, while potentially preventing the onset of some severe conditions. Studies show that, over two months, subjects who showered in cold water for up to 90 seconds following their regular shower took fewer days off from work and experienced higher energy levels at work than those who didn’t.
Cold water in home environments is usually around 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, so there are minimal dangers of adverse effects after a short cold bath or cold shower. However, be wary of plunging into an outdoor lake, for example, with temperatures of 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. These temperatures could cause hyperventilation — a cold shock response — that could result in drowning, cardiac events or hypothermia.
If you have a one to two-day-old acute injury, you can benefit from an ice bath in the same way ice packs help. Many top sports teams may have ice baths in their changing rooms that athletes use before showering and dressing after events. Doing so allows them to calm their sore muscles and reduce the chances of future injuries.
Even if you’re in pristine physical shape, with a healthy autonomic nervous system regulating your blood pressure and heart rate, you should stick to a maximum of 15 minutes in a 50 to 60-degree Fahrenheit ice bath. Maybe try a shorter period to start and build up, or only individually submerge certain body parts. The benefits of well-controlled ice bathing include better sleep, more focus, core body temperature reduction, easing sore muscles and helping inflammation.
People use heat therapies for muscular or joint pains related to chronic conditions like osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia, menstrual cramps, shoulder and back spasms, sciatica nerve pains, upper back pains and, after their acute phase, muscular pulls and tears. Heat therapy is sometimes effective in localized cancer treatment. Some well-known and effective thermotherapies include:
There are various hot packs, from towels soaked in boiling water, gel packs, and microwaveable fabric bean bags to electric heating pads. Applying heat to your affected body region soothes existing pain or cramping by increasing the area’s blood flow. This extra blood flow also relaxes tight muscles by triggering special thermoreceptors in your skin, sending messages to your brain to block other receptors in the short term.
Hot packs also stimulate some hormones, affecting nerve sensitivity in the area to relieve pain and spasms — a vital component in ensuring unhindered tissue recovery. An added benefit of using hot packs is that you can use them often for around 15 minutes at a time. Constantly monitor your body’s reaction to a heat pack — if you notice uneven red blotches or blistering on your skin, stop using the hot pack immediately. If your brain tells you the pack is too hot, it’s too hot.
Soaking in a hot bath is a convenient and inexpensive form of heat therapy, with several benefits. You can relieve stress and tension while managing muscle aches and pains. Ensure your bath fills enough to allow buoyancy to take the pressure off your joints. Ideally, if you have one, use a hot tub for 15-minute wellness sessions.
The dryness of sauna heat has well-known general wellness and relaxation benefits, but it can also help if you have cold symptoms, chronic fatigue, muscle stiffness, psoriasis, stress, or heart problems. Sweating through raised skin temperature causes your body to initiate measures to cool you, increasing your heart rate and opening your blood vessels. Doing so improves circulation, similar to exercising in moderation.
Regular sauna bathing can positively affect your blood pressure compared to excluding it from your regular exercise regimen, and lower your blood cholesterol through sweating. Exercising, followed by a sauna, balances your cardiovascular and respiratory fitness levels to decrease your chances of heart disease.
If done correctly, both hot and cold therapies are effective in helping your injury recovery and reducing the pain you experience with certain chronic conditions. Using these therapies will also assist in maintaining or enhancing your general health and wellness. Cold treatment works best for treating and preventing acute injuries, while heat therapy is more effective for longer-term chronic conditions where inflammation isn’t a factor. After cold therapy removes inflammation in acute injuries, hot treatment also aids recovery.
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