What are the health and safety issues to follow for a guitarist
For a guitarist, music is where his life is. Any discomfort or injuries can severely hider a guitarist’s impact of playing to the best of his capabilities. For maintaining proper health is a tough shot for a guitarist. As an example, in a general health guideline, it’s often narrated that punching things frequently is not a good idea. But as you know, a professional guitarist can’t help that.
Therefore, guitarists need to maintain some additional health care practices to ensure their health and professional efficiency. In this article, we have done something on that issue. After thorough research as a guitarist myself, I have listed down top health problems of a guitarist and how to get over them. Hope anyone with a guitar to play, will benefit from this article.
Major Health Issues of A Guitarists and How to Prevent Those
- Forearm Pain, Numbness and Tingling
One of the most common problems both acoustic and electric guitar players face is the forearm pain, tingling, and numbness. Being one of the most common problems of musicians, surprisingly, most of them even don’t consider it as a problem. But years of such ignorance can end up your career and bind you to take a desk job.So before it’s too late, here are some effective cautions you can practice to get rid of these problems:- Follow the RICE method. RICE stands for rest, ice, compression and elevation. It’s a great treatment of forearm pain, numbness or tingling from home. But importantly if you are serious on this, you need to do daily practices.
- Rest your forearm to treat tingling and tendinitis. As it’s also a common problem to athletes and sportsmen, you might hear of it before. Though it sounds easy, you cannot help resting your arm on a regular basis. Give your hands an hour of break while you are on work.
- Once you got affected by any of these three problems, Ice up the area of pain for a 20 minutes daily. This is a typical first aid treatment, but it can help getting rid of the initial pain.
- Lastly and most importantly, take proper medication and treatment. As a guitarist, you should have regular pay a visit to your doctor for a basic health checkup, no matter you are sick or not.
- Cubital Tunnel Syndrome
Secondly, I wild like to draw your attention to another common issue of a guitarist- the Cubital Tunnel Syndrome. It affects the inner side of the forearm and also the pinky side of the hand. Although this problem is a common one to most musicians, unfortunately, most of us are not aware of it at all.Now that you are informed let’s look at the remedies and safety concerns to prevent Cubital Tunnel Syndrome:- Give yourself a break when you are playing continuously. After a long playing session of 45 minutes, give yourself a break of 10 minutes or more. Instant playing for hours and hours can lead to micro-tearing of the hand muscles.
- While you are on a break, do something to increase the blood circulation. Some common practices are stretching your forearms and self-massaging. Try to let your body for a while after you are done with these exercises.
- Start going to a professional therapist for a professional massage on your body. Regular intake of therapy and massages will decrease the chance to get affected by Cubital Tunnel Syndrome a lot.
- Increase your nutrition and get some changes in the diet chart. You can use nutrition supplements for additional benefit. But before doing that, make sure to ask your doctor.
- Focal Dystonia
You might have heard of a musician names Tommy Lovelace as a guitarist with Focal Dystonia. It’s a disorder of movement that sustains contractions on body and hand muscles. Being affected, this can stick a single muscle or a group of the muscle of a body.Major symptoms of this disease are a deterioration on handwriting after writing several lines. Also, the tendency of one foot to pull up after walking or running for a while, foot cramps, etc. are also major symptoms of Focal Dystonia. If you keep ignoring these without taking any precaution, this can lead to more notable and widespread from and finally, can end up your career.Here are some effective tips to get rid of Focal Dystonia at an early stage:- Don’t keep playing or singing with a tired muscle or an impairment of injury. This practice for months will catalyze Focal Dystonia.
- Use comfortable shoes for extended practice, and during a recital, show, or concert.
- A good way to get rid of this disease it to practice some other forms of musical instruments. As an example, a guitarist can try giving some of his efforts on a flute. Playing flues will rest his fingers, and the musical sense of flute will increase the variation of taste in his mind. Thus, this is beneficial for both mind and body.
Finally, what I would like to say is, some particular health practice adoption can be good for a guitarist. As no one wants to get stumbled by an unexpected illness, he should always keep himself inside some habits and exercises. For more information on any other health issues, it’s better to consult with your personal physician.
Best of luck!
Tags: exercise, guitar, guitar injuries, healing, injury, injury prevention, massage, nutrition, therapy
