Injured, so “R.I.C.E” It… Right? Not so Fast!
The age old saying that will continue to live on… if you don’t know what I’m talking about, the term is ‘R.I.C.E.’
“Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation”
Sound familiar? It rings true in many ears I’m sure that this was the common injury/sprain/stub your toe/twist your ankle universal healer said by many coaches and parents throughout the years. What if I told you that this is actually being moved away from (*Gasp*).
“BUT WHY?”
Great question! I’m glad you asked. Let’s dive into it, shall we?
R.I.C.E. has been training disuse fear avoidance
2. Ice actually SLOWS DOWN the healing process of inflammation
Alright let us break these two topics down…
Disuse fear avoidance is the process of when we don’t do something, we create a mental barrier to that task. Think about the last time you forgot to check your blind spot while driving and there was a car there. You attempted to merge and probably had a miniature heart attack as that car laid on the horn to warn you of their presence. I bet for the next couple days you made a very strong intent to look at your blindspot and maybe even double check it because you were nervous that would happen again. That is the brain creating a hyper-awareness of your anxiety filled moment of almost colliding with someone on the road.
Our brain does the same thing when we are injured. We sprain our ankle running, so the next time we go to run that trail we may pick a different route or change our stride/pace to remain hyper-vigilant to not have it happen again. R.I.C.E. further emphasizes this on occasion, as the longer we R.I.C.E. the more we fear using that area. The psychology surrounding an injury is a VERY real phenomenon, and I have witnessed R.I.C.E. accelerate the fear surrounding the return from an injury.
2. When we hurt something, the human body typically does what it does best, which is it begins to try to heal itself (go figure!)
What if Ice was actually slowing down our bodies healing process??…
That basically goes against everything you were told when utilizing ice for an injury, isn’t it? Crazy!
So let me explain (without getting extremely technical into the scientific changes occurring when we having inflammation)… we know that when we have swelling, there is some type of inflammatory process most likely occurring at that localized area. This process typically happens immediately after some type of injury occurs, and can last days to weeks to months. Inflammation is a naturally occurring process the human body uses to HELP us heal. We commonly associate swelling and redness with inflammation, and then our train of thought immediately goes negative. We are discouraged by the swelling occurring. My question for you to ponder is, why are we viewing this as a negative? I completely agree it can be uncomfortable and lead to irritation, but inflammation is the bodies process of trying to fight something or heal something so we should appreciate that our body is attempting to do this for us!
So… if we ice this inflammation, let us make sure we are icing for reasons that make sense. Ice can certainly make people feel better at the localized level, and I support this notion because if it makes you feel better I think we shouldn’t necessarily take this pain relief away in your recovery. But if we are icing to improve our healing, this is where the mindset needs to change.
Icing is SLOWING DOWN our healing. Again, I am speaking about the science behind inflammation here. Yes, you may feel better after you ice which might make you feel like you are getting better quicker, but you might get better even quicker if you never iced. As I said above… THIS IS GOING AGAINST ANYTHING YOU WERE EVER TOLD RIGHT?! Because it definitely fought my biases until I learned more about this.
When we ice, we are constricting blood vessels (or making them more narrow). If we narrow the pathway for blood to flow (which brings nutrients and oxygen to our tissues), we are slowing down how quickly all that ‘good stuff’ can get to the area of injury to heal it! I implore you to consider this when using ice or recommending the use of ice the next time an injury occurs for you or a friend/family member. If it feels good, by all means be my guest and use it to feel better. If you are using it to help quicken your recovery though, you may want to reconsider… Food for thought!
Until next time
