Self-Healing: Muscle Cramps

This is part of a series of postings on self-healing, which you can access via the "Self-Healing" tag which appears in the Slog’s left margin below "Popular Entries". For general tips and background on self-healing, read this.


I've had problems with muscle cramps all my life. Over the years, I cultivated, with great effort, the habit of lightly resisting the cramping - i.e. opposing the direction your body part's pulled by the muscle spasm. It's difficult, and requires grace under duress, but it helps. But it's not always sufficient.

I eventually came to notice that firmly tapping my foot against the floor relieves toe cramps. And I expanded on that to develop a cure:

Rhythmically and firmly slap the body part with the palm of your hand like you're trying to coax ketchup from a bottle. Repeat two or three times per second until the cramp subsides. It works.