Skin

How to Make a Wound Heal Faster

Written by andy

How to make a wound heal faster, the easy way:

Wounds are a part of an active life! If you are rock climbing, boating, surfing, skiing, cycling, or running, you’re bound to suffer the occasional injury. It’s just what happens when you are an active person.

You can speed up the healing process naturally by doing a few simple things that will make a wound heal faster:

  1. Balance your stress — Did you know that cortisol (the stress hormone) will slow down your wound healing process? Stress causes imbalances in your hormones, reducing the production of the nutrients needed to heal your wound. To enable your body to heal your wounds quickly, get your stress under control!
  2. Keep it hydrated –– If you want to know how to make a wound heal faster, it’s as simple as keeping the skin hydrated. Dry skin cracks, bleeds, and heals more slowly, but skin that is properly hydrated is able to produce collagen and elastin–the two proteins that heal your wounds. Apply Polysporin or Neosporin to your wounds to speed up healing as well as keep bacteria under control.
  3. Increase protein intake –– When your skin is healing itself, it needs more collagen and elastin in order to strengthen the skin cells. These two proteins require amino acids, which you can get from foods like red meat, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, and legumes. All of these foods will deliver the protein punch needed to heal your skin.
  4. Limit sugar and empty carbs –– Both of these foods will require energy for your body to produce, and you’ll end up suffering from high blood sugar levels thanks to these foods. This will stop your body from working as efficiently as possible, leading to slower wound healing. Cut carbs and sugar to keep your wounds healing well.

READ MORE: 10 Skin Healing Foods

  1. Ditch cigarettes –– If you’re a smoker, you could seriously slow down the rate at which your body heals itself. Smoking raises your blood pressure, which means that there is less blood flowing to the body part that needs healing. The less blood your wounds get, the longer they take to heal! Stop smoking and let your body heal itself!
  2. Apply honey –– Honey is an AMAZING remedy that will speed up healing quite efficiently. Not only will it help to get rid of bacteria and prevent infection, but it will provide important nutrients directly to the healing skin. It can speed up healing by almost 30%, making it an effective remedy to make your wounds heal faster.
  3. Get a massage –– While you don’t want someone to massage the wound directly, you should consider getting a massage that increases the flow of blood to the part of your body where the wound is located. The more blood that the injured area receives, the better! Blood brings oxygen and nutrients, everything your body needs to heal itself. A stimulating massage can speed up healing effectively.
  4. Try compression –– If the wound is more serious or larger, you will want to apply compression to the injured area. This will help to stimulate the flow of blood, keeping all the blood flowing directly to the area that needs the healing. The more blood you get, the faster the wound heals.

Try these tricks next time you suffer from a cut, scrape, burn, or wound of some sort, and see if your body doesn’t heal itself faster!

About the author

andy

Some people get lucky and are born with fit, toned bodies. Andy Peloquin is not one of those people... Fitness has come hard for him, and he's had to work for it. His trials have led him to becoming a martial artist, an NFPT-certified fitness trainer, and a man passionate about exercise, diet and healthy living. He loves to exercise--he does so six days a week--and loves to share his passion for fitness and health with others.