Make the Road to Recovery Faster

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, some 2.04 million cases of illnesses or injuries incurred by United States workers in 1995 caused them to miss one or more days of work. Sprains and strains were the most common, measuring some 877,000 cases, of which the median number of days spent away from the workplace was five. Carpal tunnel syndrome wasn't as nearly as common as cuts and lacerations, sprains and strains, or fractures, though people who took off work for the condition stayed away for a median of 30 full workdays.

Keep in mind that elderly people often don't hold jobs. Elders who experience injuries that require lengthy rehabilitation times aren't included in the information referenced above. Know that the average elderly person needs significantly longer to recover from injuries and illnesses than their younger, healthier counterparts.

With this information taken into consideration, it's reasonable to assume that there could be 2.5 million, three million, or even more major injuries incurred by United States citizens each year that take a long time to heal. Although there are countless variables that factor into the length of successful recovery periods, some of which can't begin to be changed voluntarily by people looking to recover more quickly, here are a few ways to make your road to recovery just a little bit - or maybe a whole lot - shorter.

It's simple, but it's helpful - Get plenty of sleep during recovery

According to a Jan. 2018 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology, the official journal of the American Physiological Society, research has found a strong correlation between regularly getting enough sleep during your recovery period and wounds that heal relatively quickly.

The aforementioned study involved purposefully administering a cluster of eight blisters on roughly 70 patients' forearms and studying how quickly they healed in patients who slept longer on a regular basis. The study specifically found that people who slept for roughly three hours each night during the study needed one full day longer than their counterparts who slept between seven and nine hours each night.

The less you stress, the more quickly you'll heal

Virtually all humans are able to meditate. If you haven't meditated before, meditation involves closing your eyes, separating yourself from distracting stimuli, practicing deep cyclical breathing, and relaxing your muscles.

Some people experience the same feeling that purposeful meditation elicits when they find themselves lost in whatever activities they're engaged in. Called the relaxation response, a term coined by the medical doctor and author Herbert Benson, the people who naturally experience such a feeling on a somewhat-regular basis heal from stress-related or stress-exacerbated illnesses and injuries days or even weeks more quickly than their counterparts.

Some drugs delay the healing process

Ibuprofen is one of the world's most trusted anti-inflammatory and analgesic drugs. The NSAID - short for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, a family of drugs that includes acetaminophen and aspirin - is safe as long as it's not taken in excess.

Although we may have been given ibuprofen from our parents, guardians, or other caretakers when we were sick or physically injured in our younger years, and even though it might seem as if anti-inflammatory drugs are ideal for accelerating the healing process that soft tissue injuries require, this actually isn't valid according to modern medicine.

The University of Iowa's Dr. Mederic Hall, a sports medicine physician that sees tons of soft tissue injuries, says that anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen delay the time they need to heal. Although they can help relieve any existing pain, other analgesics that do not possess anti-inflammatory qualities should be used to improve comfort.

If you're willing to push the envelope, try experimental, controversial, or off-label treatments

Stem cells are a certain type of cell found in organisms that create other cells through self-division, not to mention morph into entirely different types of cells. Although some people are against stem cells or feel that their use is controversial, rest assured that using treatments involving stem cell for knees is one of the fastest ways to recover from a knee injury.