Hip Pain including Bursitis Hip and Hip Arthritis

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When you are young, healthy, eat a balanced diet, exercise regularly and live a full life, you are least likely to suspect that anything could go wrong with your health. You are even less likely to guess that anything at all may go wrong with your joints, causing you pain.

Unfortunately, there are some aches and pains that do not restrict themselves to visiting only the middle aged. In fact, bursitis hip can affect you in your prime, despite being perfectly healthy.

Bursitis is something that you will be completely aware of when it starts affecting you and announces its presence through intense pain. It is quite happy to occur all of a sudden. Perhaps one morning you may wake up and feel hip pain. So, what is bursitis, what causes it and how can you treat it?

The biology of it

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of explaining exactly what bursitis hip is. The point where the muscles are attached, the point that allows your hip joint to move, is called the trochanter. Lying over this is a large bursa, which is the source of the problem.

When the bursa becomes inflamed, it causes the pain you feel in your hip. Often, the pain of bursitis hip starts off as sharp and focused in a single small spot. It can grow to become an ache that is more widely spread across the hip area. When you visit your doctor for a diagnosis he will give you a full physical examination and perhaps request other tests.

What causes it?

Overreaching yourself in daily activities causes bursitis hip. You need not be unfit in order to overreach yourself; you simply push your fit and healthy body too far for it to manage. When this happens it irritates the bursa and causes it to become inflamed.

Bursitis hip is not as common among younger, healthier and fitter adults as it is among middle aged and older adults. It is also more common in women than it is in men. As you grow older, a hip injury or even lying on your hip for too long can lead to an unpleasant visit of bursitis hip.

Treating the pain

When you have bursitis hip, it is no use forcing yourself through your daily exercises and routines. Take it easy and rest your hip to lessen the inflammation and try not to do anything that may aggravate your already unhappy bursa. Bursitis hip can also be prevented and kept at bay by living a healthy live, not pushing your body beyond its limits and taking cell regenerative supplements. Anti-inflammatory medication will also help ease the pain caused by the inflammation.

You can also invest in an acupressure mat for natural and effective pain relief through massage of the body’s pressure points. Massaging the pressure points in your body will allow increased blood flow to the inflamed area, aiding healing. It will also stimulate the release of your body’s natural painkiller; endorphins, to help heal and ease pain. You can also use the acupressure mat in conjunction with regular workouts to relieve tension and strain from your body as a preventative measure against another visit from bursitis hip.

When I first discovered the Shakti mat, an acupressure mat designed to heighten the intensity of meditations whilst simultaneously reducing the severity of various ailments, I admit that I was a little dubious about it’s claims.

Mediation is a blissful experience requiring nothing more than a still mind. Why use a gadget like the Shakti mat? Can I really meditate on a bed of nails?

The simple answer is yes. This little acupressure mat is an extremely powerful meditative tool. I’m addicted to it now, especially at night to ensure I get a good nights sleep. A nagging ache in my hip that had me tossing and turning most nights has become a distant memory, thanks no doubt to the pain relieving properties of my nightly acupressure mat sessions.

The Shakti mat is covered with little lotus-flower shaped acupressure points providing over 6,000 ‘nails’ that stimulate the meridians, releasing energy and lulling you into a state of relaxation. Even busy, buzzy over-active minds will be stilled by a 20 minute session on one of these mats. Your mind has no choice but to slow down, there are higher energies at work here.

As you lie down onto the Shakti mat, the sensation can be a little odd. The secret is to lie straight down onto it and not to hesitate – it’s the hesitant touches of the spikes that feel uncomfortable. Once the acupressure mat is holding your weight evenly there is no discomfort, instead there is a quite unique sensation of warmth.

Within a minute of lying down fully on my Shakti mat,I felt a warm tingling sensation spread across my back. The longer I stayed there, the further the sensation spread. After ten minutes, I could even feel it in my fingertips. The warmth felt as though it were pulsating, moving around under my skin. It sounds strange but in fact it’s very comforting, to me it felt reassuring and I couldn’t help but relax more deeply.

This warmth is energy releasing as your meridians are stimulated by contact with the spikes of the acupressure mat, subtle energies within the meridians rebalancing as you rest.

With each breath, I felt myself melt deeper onto the Shakti mat. As I lay there supported by over 6,000 sharp little spikes, I found that I didn’t need to use any of my usual tricks to enter a meditative state. It just happened.

There was no need to consciously push my thoughts away, no systematic scan of the body to ensure that every little bit of me was relaxed. I simply focused on the warmth and naturally, instinctively, entered into my meditative zone with ease.

The feeling of calm that can be experienced whilst meditating on the Shakti mat is divine. The power of acupressure combined with the act of meditation makes for a truly heightened mediative state. As the subtle energies are stimulated, the mind stills further enabling you to reach a higher level of awareness whilst meditating.

If you’re looking to deepen your meditations then look no further than this little acupressure mat. The Shakti mat, as an aid to meditation, is an absolute gem.

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The Acupressure mat,  also known as the Shakti mat, initially designed to be used during meditation also has a number of benefits for general wellbeing. The acupressure mat is covered with over 6000 points disguised as little lotus flowers, offering an even greater number of acupressure points than the traditional Indian bed of nails. It is the sheer number of these stimulating acupressure points that make the mat so effective in deepening the meditative experience and in relieving a variety of common ailments.

The Acupressure mat can help alleviate the symptoms of many ailments that people often resign themselves to living with including backache, sciatica, muscular tension, joint pain, hip pain, bursitis, arthritis, difficulty sleeping, migraine, high stress levels, lethargy and depression. So, how does it work?

Quite simply, the Acupressure mat uses the long recognised benefits of acupressure to help the body to heal itself. When you lie on the mat, the points of the lotus flowers stimulate energies within your body, triggering a sense of wellbeing whilst simultaneously relieving a plethora of symptoms. How, though, does a session on  the  acupressure mat relieve pain?

Acupressure is based on the idea that the body has a meridian system, probably best likened to the nervous system, which has pathways running throughout the body in a circuit starting and ending in either the hands or the feet. When you lie on the acupressure mat, points within these meridians are stimulated causing a rush of energy throughout the pathways.

Acupressure causes the release of endorphins within the body. Endorphins are our feel-good hormones which trigger a calming and uplifting response in the body. They reduce the sensation of pain and have a positive effect on the emotions. As a result of endorphins releasing, blood pressure decreases and blood circulation improves. Endorphins also rid the body of acid which is of great benefit in relieving joint pain and digestive disorders.

When you consider that endorphins are widely believed to have similar pain relieving qualities to morphine, it’s easy to see how a session on the Acupressure mat can benefit someone suffering from persistent pain.

To use the mat for overall wellbeing, lie on it daily for around 20 minutes. For targeted pain relief, the affected area should be in contact with the mat for however long is comfortable. Start with five minute sessions and build up to 20 minutes or more. For example, if you have a pain in your hip that stops you from getting off to sleep at night, go to bed and lie on the affected side ensuring the entire hip area is in contact with the acupressure mat.

You may feel tingling sensations, pins and needles or a rush of warmth as stagnant energy begins to flow through the congested area, in this case the hip. Gradually you will feel the warmth spreading down your leg and across your back until a warm, pulsing sensation is felt from your fingers to your toes.

These sensations indicate that the painful area is decongesting, relaxing the surrounding muscles and ultimately relieving the pain. Regular use can prevent the pain from occurring enabling you to maintain a pain free state throughout the day. The possibilities here are endless, simply substitute the hip for the areas where you experience pain to achieve the same benefits.

Insomnia is greatly relieved by sleeping on the mat, lying flat on your back. You may wish to place a pillow beneath your knees to allow yourself to comfortably drift off into a deep sleep. Consider using a guided meditation to help this process along, there is a  specific Deep Sleep meditation available from www.shaktimatmeditations.com which has been designed for use with the Acupressure mat.

Regular use of the mat will reduce a variety of painful conditions including migraine as the elevated endorphin levels in your body work to block the pain impulses in the brain. Depression is alleviated by the same process as endorphins naturally lift the mood leaving you feeling calmer, happier and more relaxed.

Perhaps you like to use yoga as a form of relaxation and stress control. Believe it or not, you can perform yoga poses on the Acupressure mat, the effect of the acupressure boosting the natural effects of the poses. Place a thin cloth over the mat at first until you get used to the sensation of performing poses on the acupressure points, and start with poses where your weight is evenly balanced, such as a seated forward bend or a standing forward bend.

As you become more confident, try Tree pose where your weight is on one foot at a time, advancing perhaps to Bow pose where your lower abdomen is supported by the mat. This pose would benefit digestive and menstrual problems when performed on the Acupressure mat as the points of the lotus flowers stimulate energies in the abdominal areas.

For meditation and general relaxation, take ten minutes or more whenever possible to lie on your back on the Acupressure mat, with relaxing music or a guided meditation playing in the background. Your overall wellbeing, mood and energy levels will benefit greatly from a time out like this.

As you can see, the Acupressure mat is not simply a meditation aid. It has multiple uses in everyday life. It is a powerful health promoting tool that can help to increase productivity, reduce reliance on painkillers and improve quality of life by gradually reducing and ultimately eliminating lethargy, depression, anxiety, erratic sleep patterns and more through the widely documented benefits of acupressure. Just as every household has a hot water bottle for winter colds, each one might also consider an Acupressure mat for ongoing health maintenance and wellbeing for the whole family.

Technorati Tags: acupressure mat, bursiitis hip, hip arthritis, hip pain, meditation, relaxation, yoga