I'm not a doctor (but I'm Indian so maybe like 40%)....
But around 10 years ago at the age of 26 my wrists started hurting a bunch from being on a computer a bazillion hours a day.
I'd frequently have to stop working and rub my wrists.
Even at the young-and-dumb age of 26 I knew this seemed WAY too early to be experiencing wrist pain. I looked up all these carpal tunnel stretches and made half-assed attempts to do them every few hours. It didn't really work.
Then in November 2010 I accidentally did the smartest thing ever: I wanted to learn how to hold a handstand:
Doing a handstand circa November 2010.
November 2010 Goal was to hold a handstand.
After about a full month of daily practice, I was able to hold a strong handstand for nearly a full minute. I'm still able to do a pretty solid handstand today:
Still my go-to party trick....
What I was inadvertently doing with these handstands is putting my entire ~180 lbs of weight on two wrists and stretching them out!
After doing this for a month......I remember asking, "Whatever happened to that wrist pain stuff I used to have??"
It had simply gone away! 8+ years later, it's still gone.
Despite using multiple devices all day long in weird positions, I've never had any returning symptoms of carpal tunnel till this day, and I accredit that dramatic shift to occasionally busting out a handstand a few times a week!
If you're interested, here's how I personally learned to do a handstand:
After doing this routine each morning and each night, I was able to hold my entire weight for about a minute within 1 or 2 weeks with no pain. It was around this time any signs of carpal tunnel had gone away.
Hopefully this helps someone else out there....I will then challenge you to a handstand-off :-)
P.S. Original handstand posts on my personal blog:
- The Handstand Goal (2010)
- Doing Handstands (2010)
- Doing Handstands with Tim Ferriss (2010)
- Handstand Duel with Noah (2014)
P.P.S. If you're a writer or computer monkey like many of us here, how have YOU managed to stave off carpal tunnel (or does it frequently bother you)?
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