why does the cold compress helps with inflamed muscles, but sleeping under cold AC air can cause muscle strain, inflammation or pain?
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Using ice packs or as you said cold compress on aching muscles helps relieving the pain by slowing down / stopping the “pain message” that the muscle cells are sending to your brain thru neurons by decreasing their “alertness” to the pain (try this yourself , try pinching an area in your body with your finger with a force , then apply an ice pack to the same area for a bit and try pinching the same area with the same force , then try again with a greater force)
ELI5: if something has already strained, your brain is sending messages to it to inflame and swell up. The ice will slow that down.
If you’re sleeping in cold, as you sleep, your muscles will get colder. So when you use them, they are ‘colder’ and more likely to strain. Like working out without warming up. If you imagine the muscles as rubber bands, if you cool the rubber bands it doesn’t take as much for them to snap (of ‘strain’) than if you stretch them a few times and ‘warm them up’.
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