Muscle Soreness (DOMS)
What is Muscle Soreness?
Whether we haven’t been to the gym in a long time, have taken on a particularly demanding physical routine, or exert our muscles in a way that our body isn’t used to; it’s common to experience muscle soreness the following day. More formally known as delayed onset muscle soreness or DOMS, this is a condition that tends to take place about twenty-four hours after the initial physical exertion and gradually goes away over the course of several days. The symptoms of DOMS include a dull, achy pain in muscles when they are used—even for the most simple and undemanding activities—and a diminished capacity to use the muscles for more demanding tasks.
The Western medical community has traditionally determined the cause of this soreness to be a buildup of lactic acid in the muscles, but has more recently dismissed this theory in favor of citing the physical tearing of muscle fibers.
The main Western response to relieving and preventing muscle soreness is to encourage stretching before and after the physical activity, continuing to participate in light exercise in the days following, massage, taking anti-inflammatory medication, icing the muscles, and rest.
How Does Ayurveda View Muscle Soreness?
As muscles and joints are related to moving the body, Ayurveda considers them to be mainly related to the Vata dosha. This dosha is the element of movement, and relates to how it facilitates the movement of the stool and other waste matter down and out of the body via the large intestine.
If toxins ready are not properly evacuated through urine, feces, or sweat, the blood and other channels of the body become polluted. This causes the whole body to be affected and the muscles to become achy and fatigued. A person with Vata-based muscle soreness can also experience restlessness, insomnia, dryness of the skin, constipation, anxiety, and other imbalances indicative of dryness in the body.
As excessive Vata movement also creates a lot of friction leading to heat, strenuous physical activity can also aggravate the Pitta dosha.
Pitta energy regulates the digestive fire in the body, and as such the creation and use of heat in all types of activities relates back to the health and balance of this dosha.
When muscles are overused through excessive exercise and exertion, the movement imbalances the Vata element in the muscle tissue and they become fatigued. As a result, the extra heat gathers and burns up the muscle tissue and wasting begins to take root. A person with Pitta-based muscle soreness can also experience profuse sweating during their physical activities, burning sensations, acidity in the stomach, irritation of the skin, anger, irritability, and other imbalances indicative of too much heat in the body.
How Does Ayurveda Treat Muscle Soreness?
Imbalanced Vata energy leads to a dry, brittle quality in the body, and imbalanced Pitta energy leads to hot, burning sensations. To treat muscle soreness, Ayurveda recommends not just resting and gently stretching the afflicted muscles, but more importantly providing them with moisture and nourishment to help build the strength and vitality of the tissue in response to Vata imbalances, or cooling them down in response to Pitta imbalances. This is done through treatments and by either a Vata- or Pitta-balancing lifestyle.
For Vata-based soreness, this lifestyle will include a diet including oils and excluding dry or cold foods, using Vata-balancing herbs, and the administration of Ayurvedic treatments like an oil massage.
For Pitta-based soreness, this lifestyle will include a diet of sweet and cooling foods, a diet removing spicy or heavy foods, taking Pitta-balancing herbs, and other cooling practices.
With more nourished, less wasted muscles, a person will alleviate soreness and prevent further incidence of such symptoms in the future.
Lifestyle Changes for Muscle Soreness
When we neglect to establish the root cause of one illness, it can turn into another, stronger illness in the future. The first step in resolving a specific ailment or disease in the body is to assess the nature of our lifestyle and make general modifications. Living our day-to-day life with a deliberate intention to improve our health will help us to both resolve the disease we are suffering from and prevent further incidence of it and other diseases in the future. The following list of tasks will help you to overcome muscle soreness and prevent it in the future:
General
- Avoid rapid movements and aggressive exercise.
Practice full breath for some minutes every few hours. This will regulate and balance circulation better. - Enlist the help of an Ayurvedic practitioner to administer a calamus or sesame oil enema.
- Make a paste of warm ginger and turmeric and apply it to the affected muscles twice a day (mix 1 tsp of ginger with ½ tsp of turmeric).
- Make a paste with elecampane powder and apply to the sore muscles.
- Mixing lavender and chamomile essential oils with a little sesame oil (3 drops of essential oils to one tablespoon of sesame) and applying to the skin will calm muscle spasms and fatigue. Apply 1 to 3 times a day.
- Practice gentle yoga postures in the days following physically exerting activities to promote circulation and calm the nervous system.
- Practice corpse pose for 10 to 20 minutes a day giving up the whole body to the earth without holding any part tight.
Vata
- Favor cooked over raw foods, and add oil or ghee to foods after cooking them to increase lubrication of the colon. Favor nourishing foods such as white basmati rice and barley.
- Apply ghee to foods and mix it with a pinch of ginger, licorice, black salt, and/or triphala.
- Take a tablespoon of ghee or sesame oil with half a cup of warm water a few times a day.
- Avoid dry foods such as chips, cold cereals, cookies, crackers, and nutrition bars.
- Take the suggested herbs and herbal teas in a hot cup of water every few hours.
- Massage warm sesame oil into the affected muscles and the body as a whole.
- Massage some sesame oil into the scalp for better sleep and health of the hair.
- Obey all urges to move bowels or gas as soon as possible.
- Create more stillness through the practicing of calming yoga postures and the full breath breathing practice.
- Avoid being in the wind.
Pitta
- Eat foods with sweet and cold qualities.
- Avoid eating spicy, hot, sour, and greasy foods.
- Avoid using too many hot spices such as garlic, hot peppers, and onions.
- Avoid drinking alcohol and other stimulants.
- Avoid frequent, continuous, and excessive amounts of eating.
- Avoid eating fewer than three or four hours before going to bed.
- If the body is strong, take 1 teaspoon of castor oil in a cup of warm water, or adjust the amount to be more or less as needed. This is a good purgation to relieve excess heat from the system. (This is best to do before bedtime or in the early morning, but not if you have to leave the house within 3 hours.)
- Avoid speaking too much and emotionally investing in too many conflicts.
- Avoid the hot sun and letting it shine directly on the head and body.
- Avoid too many selfish and self-indulgent thoughts.
- Favor gentle yoga over running or gym exercises.
- Avoid heated sweat rooms or saunas.
Better Foods For Muscle Soreness?
Ayurveda teaches us that disease and sickness are derived from poor digestion and inappropriate food choices. We then have the opportunity to make deliberate and more conscious decisions as to what foods we do and do not put in our body which increases the chance of resolving the body’s imbalance.
Food needs to be in season, in moderate combinations of one or two food groups, not too hot or cold, in a modest enough quantity to allow for room in the stomach later, consumed without too much liquid which hinders digestive power, and should be fresh and not left over for more than a few hours. The general intention of responding to vaginal yeast infections with food is to eat items that help to reduce the aggravation of whatever dosha is manifesting in associated symptoms (constipation for Vata, etc.).
Ghee
Milk (warm)
Olive oil
Sesame oil
Rice (white basmati)
Oats (cooked)
Pineapples
Mangoes
Peaches
Apricots
Grapes
Fresh figs
Carrots
Sweet potatoes
Asparagus
Ghee
Apples
Pears
Mangoes
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Brussels Sprouts
Asparagus
Barley
Oats (cooked)
Rice (white basmati)
Milk
Coconut oil
Olive oil
Foods To AVOID In Response To Muscle Soreness
While some foods can help to balance an aggravated dosha, other foods can cause further imbalance. Dry and cold foods as well as pungent, bitter and astringent tastes will dry out the body and aggravate the Vata dosha.Sour, salty and pungent tastes as well as spicy foods will add more heat to the body and aggravate the Pitta dosha.Sweet, sour and salty tasting foods will add heaviness to the body and aggravate the Kapha dosha. The following foods can aggravate Vata or Pitta energy, and should therefore be avoided in response to muscle soreness:
Apples
Pears
Watermelon
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Tomatoes
Celery
Eggplant
Corn
Oats (dry)
Barley
Most legumes including green lentils and garbanzo beans
Raw and cold foods
Grapefruit
Bananas
Cherries
Pineapple
Tomatoes
Garlic
Carrots
Spinach
Rice (brown)
Corn
Nuts
Lentils
Corn oil
Almond oil
Spicy foods
Sour foods (like yogurt, sour cream, and pickles)
Salt
Meat
Beverage for Muscle Soreness
Generally, Ayurveda discourages the consumption of too many cold beverages, as doing so hinders the strength of the body’s digestive fire. Instead, favors room temperature or hot beverages to encourage the strength of the digestive fire. The following beverages will help create regularity along with the bedtime remedies listed above:
Hot water, especially during meals and first thing in the morning.
Herbal teas of ginger, cardamom, and fennel.
Avoid cold and frozen drinks.
Avoid sugary or fizzy drinks that blend with the digestive juice and make it weak.
Avoid alcohol, coffee, and black tea.
Herbs For Muscle Soreness
Herbs are used in the Ayurvedic system much like Western medicine utilizes drugs and vitamins and can be taken like tea 2 to 3 times a day. Herbs aid in the digestion of food, the breakdown and elimination of toxins, and help to strengthen the cellular structure of our system for greater vitality. Herbs become more potent once mixed with other herbs of similar properties. Mix together 2 to 4 different herbs from the below list by adding a quarter to a half teaspoon full of each, for a total of 1 teaspoon. Drink these in half cup of hot water.
Ginger
Turmeric
Cinnamon
Cardamom
Fennel
Neem
Castor Oil
Flaxseed
Psyllium
Sesame (seeds, oil)
Aloe
Senna
Triphala
Guduchi
Kantkari
Vidanga
Ashwaghanda (for body strength)
Bala
Coriander
Cumin
Licorice
Fresh ginger
Aloe Vera
Turmeric
Sandalwood (white)
Musta
Lotus seeds
Gokshura
Pippali
Yoga Postures For Muscle Soreness
When applied therapeutically to specific ailments, yoga postures provide an opportunity to strengthen the body, rid it of toxic matter, and restore balance. The postures included in this section can be practiced as part of a more general sequence or can be focused on in short sessions. When first exploring yoga postures, it is best to only practice them for twenty minutes or so per day and buildup from there once the body becomes more flexible. The following postures will help to gently stretch the muscles and help to alleviate soreness:
Knee to chest
Camel
Shoulder Stand
Forward bend
Easy seat (while leaning forward a bit)
Bridge
Plough
Spinal twist
Corpse
Aromatherapy For Muscle Soreness
Aromatherapy utilizes the fragrances of essential oils when applied to the skin. Essential oils can burn the skin and therefore must be diluted with a base oil such as sesame, coconut, sunflower, canola, or mustard oil. Mix 1 fluid ounce of base oil with about 12 drops of essential oil before applying to skin. You can also just mix 5 drops of base oil to one drop of essential oil if using on one spot.
Vata-based muscle soreness can be treated with basil, camphor, cedar, eucalyptus, frankincense, ginger, lavender, lily, lotus, musk, myrrh, patchouli, sandalwood, or cinnamon oil.
- Use a sesame oil base.
Apply oil on the skin wherever there is muscle soreness.
Pitta-based muscle soreness can be treated with sandalwood, tea tree, rose, honeysuckle, gardenia, lily, iris, mint, or lavender oil.
- Use a coconut or sunflower oil base.
- Apply oil in the center of the chest in front of the heart.
Mantra Therapy For Muscle Soreness
Ayurvedic tradition suggests that repeating certain words or sounds can help a person suffering from an ailment to restore subtle balance to nerve tissue and enhance one’s mental clarity. Different sounds are prescribed to either repeat mentally or chant outwardly. These sounds are also used and repeated in the mind for the purpose of spiritual growth.
To help resolve Vata-based muscle soreness, repeat the syllable “Ram” (pronounced Rahm) for several minutes a few times a day and build more practice over time.
As a Vata-related disorder, it is helpful to inwardly repeat this syllable for the duration of time it is practiced and not say it out loud.
To help resolve Pitta-based muscle soreness, repeat the syllable “Aum” (pronounced ohm) for several minutes a few times a day and build more practice over time.
As a Pitta-related disorder, it is helpful to both outwardly chant and inwardly repeat this syllable for the duration of time it is practiced.
Breathing Practices For Muscle Soreness
Controlling the breath is a central practice toward developing peace and stillness in the mind and body. When the breath is under our control, we are no longer at the mercy of the senses that are stimulated by everything and lead to greater fluctuations of the mind. When applied to the context of resolving specific ailments, the breath is used as a tool for developing lung capacity, heating and cooling the body and resolving mental afflictions like anxiety and stress.
General Doshas
Vata
Pitta