Do your hands hurt? Ache? Feel weak? I understand! I can help you!
After 25+ years of giving massages my hands can hurt. Let me help you relieve your hand pain!
How can you relieve you achy hands?
Try these tips and ideas to ease the aching pain in your hands:
- 1. Get & Keep Your Hands Warm
- 2. Ice Your Hands
- 3. Massage Your Fingers, Hands and Forearms
- 4. Have a Hand & Body Stretching Routine
- 5. Have Acupuncture on Your Hands!
- 6. Foam Roll Under Your Arms
- 7. Rest Your Hands
- Conclusion
1. Get & Keep Your Hands Warm
Truly, getting and keeping your hands warm really helps relieve hand pain.
Do what ever it takes to keep them warm, especially right after you finish your last massage of the day, last tennis match, last craft you’ve made, whatever your amazing hands are doing: get them warm. When your hands start getting sore, this is the #1 helpful tip!
Bean Bag Warmer
I use a bean bag warmer to keep my hands warm: one of those bags that you put in the microwave for 2 minutes. It’s awesome! These are easy to make yourself! Sometimes they can be foudn at local craft fairs! (We sell these for $18)
Another “warming” option is the paraffin bath. I have my machine on all the time. This is the amazon affiliate link to the one I use:
Dip your hand in 5 times in a row and keep the wax on for 5-10 minutes. Because I’m the only one using my paraffin bath, I put the wax back into the machine to reuse the wax. If you’ve just iced your hands, let them get to room temperature before dipping into the wax.
Get your hands warm with Lush’s hand “golden handshake—Hot Hand Mask” (this is not an affiliate link, I just love it).
Follow the instructions to make the “hand mask, then soak your hands in this wonderful hand soak.
Related Post: How Tea Can Benefit Your Self-Care Routine
2. Ice Your Hands
If your hands are still hurting, ice them.
This seems counter productive to Tip 1, I know, but it’s still helpful. Ice will relieve hand pain.
-NEVER EVER put the ice bag on bare skin for more than 1 minute! You will burn your skin! I use one ice cube at a time to melt on my achy area, but if it’s an ice BAG, make sure to have a buffer between your skin & the ice.
-Place ice in a ziplock or plastic bag, a cloth on your hand between the skin and the ice bag, and leave it on for 3-10 minutes. I only do 3 minutes.
-Take one ice cube out and move it around, especially on the most painful areas, until the ice is melted.
-Soon after icing, get your hands warm again.
There are several “camps” about using ice and heat for pain relief and slowing or reducing inflammation.
Here are some posts on the subject:
- Stop Icing Your Injuries: Why Heat is the New Ice by Dr. John Rusin for drjohnrusin.com
- Athletes Love Icing Sore Muscles, But That Cold Therapy Might Make Things Worse by Christie Aschwanden for The Washington Post
Personally, I use heat WAY more heat than I use ice, and I have found that heat—-even RIGHT after an acute injury—-works better than ice.
However, ice really does relieve pain!
Keep in mind, that ice can SLOW and even HINDER the healing process and cycle. So, use ice if you like it, but understand how the research is changing the way ice is used for injuries, healing and lowering inflammation.
Try Hot to Cold to Hot Routine to Relieve Hand Pain
- Warm hands for 10-15 minutes with the bean bag or under water, etc
- Ice hands, with ice bag over cloth, melting an ice cube on the most painful fingers/hand joints less than 10 minutes
- Warm hands up again with a microwavable “bean bag”
- Put hands in the paraffin wax bath 5-7 times, wrap with a plastic bag & keep on for 10-20 min
- Soak hands in LUSH’s Hand Mask
3. Massage Your Fingers, Hands and Forearms
Massage for the Fingers
Start by doing a push-pull on your fingers: gently grab your entire finger (forefinger) with your other hand, and pull, then push back into the hand, then pull, etc. The pressure you are using is the same as if you were pushing along a helium balloon. Not too much, but not very little. Repeat on each finger.
Milk each finger, like you were gently trying to roll off a sticker that was stuck to your finger. Start at the base of the finger, closest to the hand, and ending at the tip of the finger. Use a little more attention and time in your sore areas. Decrease pressure where there is pain, and instead, gently rub.
Wrist Push Pull
Push and Pull the Wrist: Like with the fingers, pull away and push in, this time, anchoring your elbow of the wrist being pulled to the side of you body, and use your entire hand to grab. Really press your elbow into your side, so you have more leverage to pull your hand away from the wrist. Do this motion with quick little jolts, like you were trying to get a stuck key out of a lock, 4-5 times. Then, push the hand towards the wrist in the same quick jolts, still securing your elbow to your side. If this is tender, use less pressure and just pull the hand away from the wrist to see if this might relieve some of the discomfort.
Shake your hands out & roll your wrists: Gently shake your hands and flutter your fingers like you are saying “toodleoo”. ? .
Roll your fists in circles in order to stretch the tops of the hands and parts of the forearms.
Stretch you fingers & wrist back (if you can): to stretch the hand and the flexors of the hand.
Remember to breathe. ?
Massage for the Hands
Massage the palm of your hand with your thumb just by the base of the palm on the fleshy part, all around the bottom of the hand. Make sure your hand is resting palm up on a pillow or some type of soft surface. If you don’t have a soft surface, you can hold your hand being massaged in the palm of the hand doing the work. Then, move your thumb pressure from the bottom of the hand by the wrist up towards each finger tip. Repeat on all fingers.
Massage the top of the hand by squeezing your hand in between your thumb on the palm side into your fingers on the top of the hand. Repeat all across the top of the hand, the middle and pay close attention around the thumb.
Massage for the Forearm
Keep squeezing and move up the forearm now. You can squeeze all the way to the elbow and go back, up and down the forearm squeezing. When your hand gets tired of squeezing, place your arm on the soft surface and use your thumb pressure like you did with the palm.
Grab just below your elbow and massage the muscles there, moving and squeezing down towards the hand. spend more time and attention on sore areas.
4. Have a Hand & Body Stretching Routine
Here are some pictures of some stretches that can help your hand pain.
You can take a stick, either a drum stick, a long spoon, a strong ruler, for example, and hold it in your affected hand.
With the other hand, take the stick and rotate it around, both directions to stretch the hand holding the stick.
I have a drum stick close by to stretch my hands/forearms and to show clients how to stretch theirs.
For best LIFE results, Stretch all the way up to your neck, then also your back and side. I roll my wrists, use the drum sticks for my forearms, a doorway to stretch my pecs, and an exercise ball to stretch my back, obliques, neck and triceps. Check out more stretches here, on our stretches page.
Related Stretches:
5. Have Acupuncture on Your Hands!
This really helps!
After having a cyst in my palm, Acupuncture got rid of it in 5 sessions.
I went 5 days in a row. 1 hour session each day. And I took the herbs they suggested.
A hand surgeon told me that surgery wouldn’t work and that the cyst would just get bigger and massage as a career was over.
Acupuncture worked great.
That was 8 years ago, and I only missed a few weeks of work.
I used Acupuncture again when my thumb was sore and it helped that too… in 2 sessions.
6. Foam Roll Under Your Arms
This really help my arms and hands relax. Stretch you arm AWAY from your hip in a long reaching motion to help your entire body stretch. This will help relieve hand pain.
Also, foam roll under your arm and on your side to target the teres major, minor and your lats.
These are the muscles under your arm and down your side. They are responsible for some neck and shoulder tightness if they are bound up, and foam rolling them can do wonders for those areas as well as relieve hand pain!
Do this by putting your arm above your head and foam rolling the area under your arms. Email me if you need some ideas with the foam rolling. When my hands are sore, I add this to my routine to soothe them. It’s not always the obvious areas that make the most difference.
You can try some other foam rolling techniques here.
7. Rest Your Hands
Have hours and days that you intentionally rest your hands. Make time to recover after a certain number of hours using your hands.
And then really rest your hands: no typing, or opening of cans; no pushups or weight holding at the gym on your rest days.
If you go to the gym, use the “hand rest days” as days for legs & core. Do exercises where “gripping” isn’t needed.
Do some of the lists from above: Warming Your Hands Routine or Massaging Your Hands Routine
Conclusion
My favorite tips to relieve hand pain work for me, and I hope some of them work for you!
Buying a paraffin machine has been worth it for me, and I’ve used it almost every day during the colder months.
If you have any questions or need support with your hand pain, or need any of the links to buy these items, please email me. familyfitnesstravel@gmail.com
7 Tips to Relieve Hand Pain
- Get and Keep Your Hands Warm
- Ice Your Hands
- Massage Your Fingers, Hands & Forearms
- Have a Hand & Body Stretching Routine
- Have Acupuncture on Your Hands
- Stretch & Foam Roll Under Your Arms
- Rest Your Hands
