Bad Habits for your Joints

We tend to make jokes about our joints as we get older; when we can’t stand up as easily as we used to and our knees protest as we crouch down, we force out a laugh along with a groan. Joint pain and weakness is just something we all seem to accept as part of getting older and it doesn’t take long to feel your joints going downhill. But there are things we do in our everyday life that make aging harder on our joints than it needs to be; the way you treat your joints in your adolescence and young-adulthood will have far-reaching consequences as you age. There are certain common habits you should be aware of that might be damaging your joints.

Repetitive Motions: Think about it: what do you do every day that forces your joints to go through repetitive motions? How about working with technology? Typing on a keyboard all day or using your smart phone forces the joints in your hands, wrists, and even shoulders to consistently move in the same ways. Try to cut down on the amount of time you spend doing these activities and add in short breaks, maybe five minutes or so, to let your joints relax now and then. When it comes to your phone, a speech-to-text function may come in handy to give your hands a break.

Strenuous Exercise: High-impact and other versions of exercise can be difficult on your joints. Running on a hard surface can negatively impact your knees while doing pull-ups or rowing machines can over-work your shoulder and wrist joints. But, of course, exercise is good for your joints, too! The key is not over-doing it. Don’t push your joints too hard and pay attention when they tell you they have had enough.

Not Enough Exercise: On the other end of the spectrum, laying around all day isn’t good for your joints, either. If your joints have nothing to do all day and are forced to stay in one position they will weaken over time. Make sure you stay active and don’t sit too much. If you work in a sedentary environment, be sure to get up and walk around the office from time to time to give your joints a break and some exercise. A sedentary lifestyle can also lead to weight gain and extra weight is tough on your joints.

An Imbalanced Diet: Eating a lot of processed foods or ignoring your vitamins can have bad consequences for your joints. Vitamin D and calcium are both necessary for joint health so make sure you are not skipping those in your diet. Also, amino acids are important for your joint cartilage. A great way to give your joints the amino acids they need is with a collagen supplement. Traditional Tonic Nourishing Collagen contains 18 amino acids to keep your joints healthy as well as collagen which supports your joints and can keep them from deteriorating over time.

Your joints are essential to your quality of life which means that we should be thinking about our joints more than we do now. Most of us only think about our joints when they are already causing us trouble but, instead, we should consider our joint health every day. Cut back on repetitive motion, keep up a good balance of exercise and rest, and make sure that your diet can support your joints by adding in Traditional Tonic Nourishing Collagen and maybe getting old won’t be quite as painful.