#109: Using Muscle Stimulation to Increase Blood Circulation

#109: Using Muscle Stimulation to Increase Blood Circulation

People don’t often think about blood circulation. Our blood naturally flows, all on its own, every moment of every day, keeping us alive and moving. For some, it only becomes a thought when they suddenly feel their feet fall asleep or their hands begin to tingle. For others, it can be continuous throbbing pains or muscle cramps. Either way, improving and maintaining healthy blood circulation is vital to a person’s health.

Let’s take a closer look at how blood circulation works, what causes poor circulation, and how using an electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) device like PowerDot can help you.

 

How Exactly Does Blood Circulation Work?

Fun fact: The adult heart pumps approximately 1,500-2,000 gallons of blood daily. And the average grown body holds roughly five quarts of blood, which is always flowing and moving.

This process is called circulation. And as the blood circulates, it delivers oxygen and other nutrients to the body’s cells and helps to take away excess waste products in the system. In other words, healthy circulation is necessary to your survival.

When you have poor circulation, blood isn’t flowing efficiently through your system. This means your cells are not receiving enough energy and food nutrients to enable the body to function in a healthy manner.

This, in turn, causes you to suffer from a variety of issues – from feeling numbness in your hands and feet, to experiencing bloat and dealing with fluid retention.

Poor circulation can range from unpleasant to quite detrimental. While it’s treatable, leaving it unattended can lead to long-term discomfort and more serious problems. Maybe you’ve heard about people getting blood clots on plane rides? This is because being immobile and in cramped spaces for too long can cause your blood to become stagnant. Read: Your circulation suffers.

 

The Causes and Signs of Poor Circulation

The health of your circulatory system determines how well blood can circulate through your body. This is affected by factors such as:

  • Improper levels of red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets.
  • Low blood pressure and other related issues.
  • Poor posture.
  • Too low or too high cholesterol levels, leading to blocked or injured blood vessels.
  • Sitting in a pinched position for too long.
  • Smoking tobacco products.
  • Sitting in the wrong type of chair.
  • Underlying health conditions like diabetes, heart conditions, or obesity.

If blood flow is constrained in a particular body part, often in your arms and legs, then you might experience these signs:    

  • Cramps
  • Numbness
  • Stinging or swelling
  • Throbbing pain
  • Sudden warmth or coolness

Most often, these signs will pass in a matter of minutes after you’ve stretched out the body part or if you stand and move around. It’s simply a matter of getting the blood flowing again. You can also complement these with healthier habits – including drinking more water or tea, exercising, getting a massage, cutting back on alcohol, and using an EMS device.

Let’s dive into that last one a little more.

 

PowerDot Can Help Improve Blood Circulation

One of the primary benefits of using an electric muscle stimulation device like PowerDot is that it helps boost the function of your circulatory system. It works by continuously encouraging blood flow and keeping your tissues active even when you’re not using your muscles — like when you’re sitting at a desk all day (having a sedentary lifestyle can be incredibly dangerous for your health), or when you’re on long-haul flights.

PowerDot can help improve the transportation, distribution, and circulation of blood to your tissues and throughout your body. This ensures that your cells and organs are receiving sufficient nutrients and oxygen, allowing you to function at optimal levels at all times.

Plus, it can help make you feel better physically. Since blood that was blocked or kept stagnant becomes reactivated, the discomfort of numbness, stinging, swelling, throbbing pain, and other symptoms subsides.

Essentially, PowerDot improves your circulation by flushing out your lactic acid and increasing oxygenated blood flow to trigger your muscles to contract and relax.  

 

PowerDot Can Help Relieve Pain, Too 

As an effect of poor blood circulation, you’re more likely to feel discomfort and even pain in certain parts of your body. But with PowerDot’s Smart TENS programming, you can effectively address any pain you might be feeling.

Smart TENS works by sending gentle electrical pulses through your skin to close your nerve “gates.” This then prevents the pain signals from traveling to your central nervous system and from ever reaching your brain — meaning your pain is relieved for a certain period. This is called the Gate Theory.

Likewise, the Smart TENS frequencies facilitate the release of endorphins – your body’s natural painkillers – into the bloodstream. This helps relieve your pain, promote muscle contractions, and make you feel better in a safe and natural way.

By tackling your pain in two ways — (1) closing the gates to your CNS and (2) nudging your body to release more endorphins — TENS can provide noticeable and significant results when it comes to finding relief from your pain and discomfort. 

What’s best about PowerDot is that it can design a program to specifically address your unique pain points. Using your PowerDot device and the accompanying app, you simply select your area of pain, confirm the type of pain you’re feeling (acute, chronic, injury-related, etc.), and set your level of pain tolerance. 

From there, our proprietary algorithm will create a customized plan that you can track over time, making it easy to monitor your progress over the weeks and months.

 

The Bottom Line

Improving your circulation does not happen overnight. Furthermore, we want to address it at its root core, as opposed to simply trying to mask the discomfort. 

This means that while electric muscle stimulation is effective in improving your blood circulation, it’s best paired with your current training and workout program, healthy habits, and an active lifestyle.

Remember, we’re in this for the long haul. With PowerDot, it’s about helping you feel better right now and making things better for you in the future.

 

Shop PowerDot’s collections today.


Learn more about what a TENS unit does.

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