why does the cold compress helps with inflamed muscles, but sleeping under cold AC air can cause muscle strain, inflammation or pain?

Question

why does the cold compress helps with inflamed muscles, but sleeping under cold AC air can cause muscle strain, inflammation or pain?

In: 15

Answer 1

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’.