Maybe you’re having some general aches and pains. Maybe your new workout regimen is leaving you sore AF. Or maybe you just desire that warm-to-your-core feeling that no blanket can offer. Whatever’s making you uncomfortable, a heating pad might be just the thing to help you find some much-needed physical—and maybe emotional—relief. Regardless of the season, heat can feel therapeutic, and heat therapy has real mind and body benefits, so it’s no wonder folks have turned to it for centuries. Now, if all you have lying around is your mom’s hot water bottle circa 1982 (which is a great tool, thank you very much) and you want something that has more features, customization, and longer-lasting heat, a heating pad is a worthwhile wellness investment.
What are the benefits of using heat therapy?
From a wellness perspective, adding heat therapy to your routine can help with a number of issues, including sleep, menstrual cramps, and sore muscles. To understand the benefits of a heating pad, it’s key to understand what’s going on underneath the surface. “Heat causes some level of vasodilation, which is the expansion of blood vessels and thus increases the blood flow going to the muscle,” Sekhar Upadhyayula, MD, a New York City–based pain management clinician and CEO at Pain Solutions, tells SELF. “So that relaxes some of the muscle fibers and helps it stretch out.” That’s part of the reason why we “warm up” before workouts and often use the time immediately following a workout—when the body is still warm—to stretch.
For acute and chronic back and neck pain, Dr. Upadhyayula often recommends heat therapy to his patients. “Heat is heavily used in my practice because it’s not a major financial burden on the patient, and there aren’t many risks,” he says. “It’s something that they can employ themselves in a safe manner, and though it doesn’t provide long-lasting relief, it does help with the symptoms temporarily.” Despite heat being a temporary fix, we know that warming up your muscles does make them easier to stretch out, so if you’re managing muscle pain or soreness, a post-heat stretch could be part of a long-term pain management solution.
When thinking about period care, heat can help ease the pain associated with cramps. “For most people, the cause of menstrual cramps is the release of chemicals called prostaglandins by the lining of the uterus,” Mary Jane Minkin, MD, a gynecologist and professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at the Yale School of Medicine, tells SELF. “I’m an advocate of using heat because, anecdotally, it helps and it’s safe. It’s not going to stop the production of those prostaglandins like, say, [pain-relieving and inflammation-reducing] NSAIDs like ibuprofen will, but it does temporarily relax muscles and make life a little more comfortable.”
But as it turns out, heat can do even more than help you manage pain. Say you’re feeling just dandy physically, but you’re perpetually wired or you struggle with sleeping well. While you may be able to mitigate some of that with good sleep-hygiene practices—like reducing evening screen time, practicing mindfulness, and abstaining from alcohol close to bedtime—you may also want to consider adding heat therapy to your wind-down routine.
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