These days, a sedentary lifestyle is becoming increasingly common for people all over the world for a number of reasons, including a lack of available space to exercise, more occupations involving sedentary work, and an increased engagement with television and other video devices in their free time.
When people's lives become centered around activities that mostly involve sitting, it becomes harder to get the right amount of physical activity. Unfortunately, this lack of physical activity has a bigger effect on our health than we might imagine. In fact, over time, it will impact people everywhere in a number of negative ways if such unbalanced lifestyles persist.
Fortunately, there are some ways that we can maintain our physical health despite having a sedentary lifestyle, such as engaging in regular physiotherapy. Physiotherapy is focused primarily on our bodies' functionality and movement, as well as maximizing our physical potential.
Using various approaches, it is possible for physiotherapy to help restore and maintain our physical well-being, which can, in turn, have a dramatic effect on our mental health, as well.
The Role of Physiotherapy: Hands-On Techniques for Pain Relief and Mobility
Physiotherapy is certainly not a one-size-fits-all approach to helping people improve their physical health. Rather, there are many different techniques that various physiotherapists employ to help their patients deal with certain issues.
Three of the most common techniques that physiotherapists tend to use are exercise therapy, manual therapy, and electrotherapy. Sometimes, physiotherapists may combine a few of these approaches to provide fuller treatment.
If they take an exercise therapy approach, your physiotherapist may suggest that you engage in regularly repeated workouts that are designed to improve the mobility and function of a certain part of your body, or activities that involve moving your whole body, like walking or swimming, to help you recover from an injury.
With manual therapy, your physiotherapist may focus more on using their hands to manipulate, mobilize, and massage tissues in various parts of your body. This can relieve pain and stiffness while improving blood circulation and promoting relaxation. Although manual therapy can help with the pain that is localized in a certain area, like your back, it can also be used to treat a range of other conditions, like lung issues or even anxiety.
With electrotherapy, your physiotherapist will use a small device to apply electrical currents to certain parts of your body. In doing so, they can help treat chronic pain, muscle wasting, musculoskeletal injuries, and nerve pain. Depending on the type of treatment that your physiotherapist employs, they may use high-frequency currents, lower-frequency currents, or a combination of both.
Physiotherapy and Prevention: Rebalancing Your Body's Muscles and Joints
Beyond the physical treatments for treating existing issues, a physiotherapist has the important role of promoting a healthy lifestyle that will help prevent future problems in your body's muscles and joints.
Physiotherapists can educate their patients about the different ways to control their own health and provide tailored advice that takes various aspects of a patient's life into account, including their work, hobbies, education, etc. By explaining the science behind certain health issues or sharing evidence from various studies, a physiotherapist can also help their patients understand the technical side of their condition and why some lifestyle changes may be necessary.
As the physiotherapist understands your lifestyle very well over the course of your meetings with them, they will consider your medical, dietary, and social history to help inform the treatment program that they design to meet your specific needs and goals.
Whether you struggle with weight management, have a chronic disease, have suffered an injury, or your physical condition has been affected by a number of these issues, your physiotherapist will use these factors to inform any advice or suggestions that they offer. They will also track changes occurring to your body and/or your lifestyle as you are progressing through your treatment plan so that it can be modified or revamped as needed.
Challenges and Limitations: Creating Sustainable Habits for Long-Term Health
Although there are many health problems that different types of physiotherapy can help with, there are also certain limitations that these approaches may have. For instance, a physiotherapist's success in treating their patient's issues is often dependent on how much that patient is willing to take the therapist's advice and apply it to their life in meaningful ways.
When patients stray away from the program they have been prescribed, or they fail to heed to the suggestions they have been given because they are looking for a faster or easier fix, it will hurt their chances of success.
In addition, there are some circumstances when physiotherapy may not be the best option to depend on solely, or there may be other necessary interventions. For example, if you have suffered from an acute or traumatic injury, such as falling and badly injuring your shoulder, it may be more logical to visit a minor injuries unit for help rather than a physiotherapist.
If your injury is causing you so much pain that it wakes you up at night, you have severe swelling or bruising, or you have difficulty bearing weight following an injury, these are all signs that you may require more urgent medical attention.
Stay Active and Healthy With Physiotherapy
Lacking a balanced lifestyle is one of the primary reasons that so many people's physicality and general health are currently in decline. Unfortunately, when we are seated for too many hours of the day and fail to participate in enough physical activity, it can dramatically affect our bodies, resulting in a variety of health concerns.
Although this kind of sedentary lifestyle may be unavoidable at times, it is important to consult a physiotherapist if you find yourself in such circumstances. They can help you set physical and mental health goals, and arrange a treatment program to reach these aims. Whether it is through exercise therapy, manual therapy, electrotherapy, or another approach, a trained physiotherapist can do wonders in helping counteract the unbalanced lifestyle that you may have found yourself forced into.
