Activity as a Cure for Pain

I was told my swollen, purple ankle would in heal 6 months if I rested it. I walked normally on it instead, which hurt like hell, and it was fixed in one month without medication.

It was the worst I've ever sprained anything. I got it by drunkenly stomping into a pothole on some jacked up San Francisco street, it hurt so bad I immediately froze and went silent. I hid it all night because I was afraid that acknowledging it would make it hurt more. The next morning it was on fire and I knew I wasn't walking anywhere. I Googled it to see if there was some way to get walking faster. Everyone said aspirin, rest, go to the doctor, get a splint, don't put weight on it.

Some marathon runner said he ran 50 miles a week and has had many sprains and some breaks. He said to walk on it normally, and don't limp or be visually obvious about the injury. I went to the doctor, she prescribed some high-dosage Ibuprofen that requires a prescription, and said to rest it for 6 months. The sprain was so swollen that it looked the same as a broken bone on the x-ray. She said "a bad sprain can be more painful than a broken bone".

I followed the marathon runner's advice instead it was all over in one month, no pills.

I've had back pain since an injury at age 17, but it hurts less now than ever before even though I work out like 8 times a week. Over the years I've read a ton about back pain, much of which is the same old advice. But a few people have pointed out the same principle as the marathon guy, basically "resting a stiff body part tells it to prepare for rest, moving a stiff body part tells it to prepare for moving". If movement is better for you than sitting around, why would that be any different (within reason) for an injury?

A piece of accepted wisdom in the bodybuilding community: "a sore muscle means you have to train it more frequently". Not an injured muscle, a sore one. If you look at random fitness sites they all say the same thing. Do your pecs hurt? Do pushups three times a week instead of one. Sore back? Do deadlifts twice a week instead of once. With correct form. It's somewhat counterintuitive, that using a sore muscle more would lead to less pain. Imagine if anything else in life was like that. Are your brakes squeaking? Drive more aggressively and slam on the brakes. Are your jeans frayed and faded? Wear them more and put them through the laundry more often.

More people are getting wise to the reality that a sedentary lifestyle is up there with smoking, diet, or booze in terms of how fast it will kill you. It can also lead to cancer, stroke, heart disease. It's incredible to think that most of the things we consider unhealthy are almost preferable to simply sitting too much. Movement is the best maintenance for me when I'm healthy, but it's also the best medicine for me when I'm unhealthy.

When I was a little kid I would run around like a maniac until every bone hurt. If something entertaining was going on, it was irrelevant how much things hurt because I was going to keep flailing until the other kids had to go home or the sun went down or my parents made me go home. I remember feeling completely worn out at the limit of tiredness... and then something good would happen and I'd keep flailing and nothing hurt anymore. Is there really even a limit when you're an excited little kid?

I can't do that anymore though, if I flailed around for hours every day I'd have horrible joint pain all the time or some other bad side effects. Wait a second, when I was a kid I used to do it for hours every day and the only side effect was excellent sleep every night for years. Huh.