How do you feel right now? Do you have an injury, a niggle? Are you wondering how best to treat it? You might seek medical attention.
You may decide, like many of my patients, to visit the emergency department.
This is often unhelpful.
There is a lot of waiting around and you usually see a very junior doctor or a nurse with no training in sports injury management.
You may get an X-ray and this might make you feel you've been treated properly.
The X-ray will of course be normal because it's usually jolly obvious when a bone is broken.
They will probably then advise you to rest, use ice, compression and elevation and suggest you take anti-inflammatories.
If you went to see your family doctor it would be much the same but without the X-ray.
My patients tend not to believe me and then visit the emergency department anyway to get their X-ray.
The problems are that compression is usually useless, no one achieves adequate elevation (it has to be higher than your heart for 6-10 hours each day to make decent progress), anti-inflammatories don't have any noticeable effect on inflammation and can actually slow the healing process for bony and musculoskeletal injuries.
To top it all, no one gives you specific advice about how and when to apply the ice, and this is the only thing which may actually help.
At least the part about resting is correct.
Rest and see how you feel.
Listen to your body.
What is it telling you? When animals are injured, they crawl under a bush and wait for three weeks until they either get better or die.
As humans, we tend to ignore the pain signal as we have much more important things to be doing.
Your body is extremely good at sending you signals about how it wants to heal best.
Too often we ignore the pain messages and wonder why we are taking so long to get better.
Pain is a loud and clear signal telling you that whatever it is that you are doing, you should stop.
Listen to your body.
It is often very wise.
If in doubt, rest another week then try a slow half mile jog.
Less than ten minutes should give you enough information.
Again, if you aren't sure, rest another week and then have another go.
Prevention is better than a cure;

• Don't ramp up mileage too much, too quickly.
  
• Don't increase the intensity too fast (speedwork, hills, intervals).
  

It is better to train every day of the week at low intensity than have one brilliant session followed by a fortnight on the sofa nursing your sprain.

• Don't overload your joints.
  

If you are heavily built, have a heavier load on your frame (middle cuddle) or are simply carrying a hydration pack with more water in it, whatever the cause, if you're overloaded then cut back on something else so the total strain is less.

• Sleep is a mighty tool in your arsenal.
  

You will be better at nearly everything if you sleep more.
Most of us are chronically sleep deprived.
We get too few hours rest each night.
The strain from this builds up as the weeks pass us without enough shut-eye.
We don't perform at our physical or mental best without enough sleep.
Our immune system suffers along with our heart health.
Get enough sleep.
You will recover from all infections and injuries more quickly if you get enough sleep.
Increased cancer risk, more heart disease and more frequent infections await the sleep deprived.
Sports performance improves with adequate rest and if you still need convincing, then your sex drive, bedroom prowess and zest for life improve too.
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