Michael Li  0:01 

Do you always wonder when to use heat and when to use ice? Today, I'm going to show you how to remember this very easily with an easy acronym at the end. And before that, we're going to understand why we use certain things. This is Dr. Michael Li from Seattle Mobility Plus helping you to move better, to feel better. So, we will really appreciate it if you can like this video if you find it useful. So, let's jump right into it. Heat helps dilate arteries. So, think about when you want to increase circulation, you want to use heat. So, in this case, when you want to promote healing, when you want to promote healing by bringing the nutrients and oxygen into the injured tissues, you want to use heat. On the other hand, with ice, that does the opposite to the arteries, it constricts. So, when you have swelling, you want to use ice on that particular area. Another cool thing about ice is, it basically stops pain. How? Now, let's use an example of having your phone outside. So, in very cold weather, you may have noticed when you press on your phone, your phone doesn't respond as quickly as in the room temperature. The reason behind that is that cold weather makes all the wiring signaling slow down, and that's the same phenomenon happening in your nerves. So, when you have this pain in this area, you want to use ice to really slow down the pain signal toward the tissues. And that's why when you use ice, or when you have pain control, you want to use ice for that. Now, latest research has shown us, ice, while it helps with the swelling and the pain control, but it actually in someway help with inflammation because inflammation is actually the first step from your tissues to tell your brain that, “Hey, we’re injured, you need to lay out those fibroblast cells to help us heal.” And research has shown us, if you actually use a lot of ice to stop that, basically that initial stage, it can actually slow down your healing. So, something to think about when you want to put ice on an acute injury, or any injury for that matter. So, as promised, here's a quick acronym for you to remember. So, think up or increase when you want to use heat. So, when you want to improve healing, or improve circulation, up, right high, think heat, high temperature. But we want to stop swelling, or when you want to stop pain, stop, down, think ice, cold. All right. I hope this little acronym helps you remember this and also the reason behind this. So, if you have any questions, feel free to comment below. And, once again, if you like this video, we will really appreciate it if you can share this video or like this video.

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