So can putting a bar of soap between your sheets help ease muscle cramps? Restless leg syndrome and leg cramps are conditions that occur at night when you are trying to go to sleep. These can be extremely frustrating and painful to deal with. This is especially true if you just want to take a rest.
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Nightly leg cramps, or known as charley horses, are a common problem people have as they are falling asleep. But, unlike restless leg syndrome, moving your leg while it is cramping will not reduce your discomfort. Instead, it will increase the pain significantly. Normally, leg cramps happen because of excessive exercise, vitamin, mineral deficiencies and dehydration.
Restless leg syndrome on the other hand, is a neurological disorder that produces unpleasant feelings in your legs while a person is resting. The main cause of restless leg syndrome is unknown, but there are some instances that have been linked to the issue. These include alcohol consumption, diabetes, kidney failure, pregnancy and medication use.
HOW TO STOP LEG CRAMPS AT NIGHT:
There are some things you can do to stop leg cramps and restless leg syndrome from happening at night. These include taking warm shower or bath, massages, eating right and drinking enough water. But, there is 1 simple thing you can do tonight that will help stop leg cramps and restless leg syndrome.
You can place a bar of soap under your sheet!
About 42% of individuals who are suffering from restless leg syndrome or leg cramps use this weird soap method to stop the problem. So why does it work? Doctors are not sure how this trick works, but some believe that the magnesium present in the soap reseolves the problem. This is because magnesium deficiency is a leading cause of both leg cramps and restless leg syndrome.
Dr. Oz suggests using lavender soap because it helps to relax your muscles due to its natural scent. So, if you are going to put soap in your bed, make it natural using an essential oil-based scent.
HOW PUTTING SOAP UNDER YOUR BED CAN GET RID OF LEG CRAMPS:
The most obvious theory regarding cramp relief is simply a placebo effect. People believe that it will work, therefoew it does. But it seems premature to just dismiss the phenomenon in this way. Maybe, there is some strange bio-chemical effect at work.
But, there hass been very little scientific investigation regarding the soap phenomenon. The 1 relevant study you could find was published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. Dr. Yon Doo Ough of Beloit Memorial Hospital in Wisconsin and colleagues studied whether soap-scented skin patches could help in easing menstrual cramps. Their study was directly inspired by the soap’s use in preventing nocturnal leg cramps. They have theorized that it was the smell of the soap, and not the soap itself, that was making that anti-spasmodic effect. Therefore, they applied soap-scented oil to skin patches and then tested them on women who have a history of severe menstrual cramps. The women mentioned that the patches did help.
Also, a few years ago, at Weird Universe, a study published in the journal Clinical Neurology and Neurosurgery looked at whether the stinky shoe smell could be a very effective treatment for epilepsy. For years, it has been part of folk medical practice in India to help in arresting epileptic seizures by forcing the individual having the seizure to smell stinky shoes. The researchers concluded that the technique worked. They stated that, “strong olfaction applied in the form of “shoe-smell” did contribute a suppressive role and thus exerted an inhibitory influence on epilepsy.”
If a strong smell can help in suppressing an epileptic seizure, therefore, it can also suppress the perception of cramps and pain. The brain works in mysterious ways, so it would be very interesting to test whether sleeping with a stinky shoe, can also help in easing cramps. Will any strong smell have the same effect?
CONCLUSION:
Until a much better explanation comes along, we are willing to accept the possibility that putting soap between the sheets might help ease cramps, perhaps because the smell tricks your brain into ignoring the pain and suppressing the cramping response.
This technique is harmless and cheap. So, if you are suffering from nocturnal leg cramps, this is worth a try. There is nothing to lose.
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