How to choose your heating pad?

A heating pad or hot pack is great to relieve muscle aches. But how to choose the best type of heating pad? 

Transcript

You are listening to Safety and Health in Hotel Housekeeping

Where we give bite-size health and safety tips for housekeepers. If you want to know more about ways to prevent injury. This is the place! And now your host: Daisy Kwok

Hello all, welcome to Safety and Health in Hotel Housekeeping. 

Today, I am going to talk about how to choose a warm pack to relieve muscle tension. 

If have been thinking of getting a heating pad to relax but want more information to select the best for yourself. This episode is for you.

How could a warm pack help to relieve muscle tension?

A warm pack helps to improve our body blood circulation by dilating the blood vessels surrounding the muscle tissue. This improves our metabolic rate, together with more oxygen is getting into your muscles tissues. which is good, in terms of recovery. 

So, before buying a hot pack.

What sort of different warm packs are there in the market now?

Warm packs come in different terms like heat packs, heat pads. 

The most common type is moist heating pack, heat up by microwave. Oftentimes, it comes in different shapes to fit our body parts. For example, a mountain shape that fits our neck, a C-shape that can rest on our shoulders.

The second type of hot pack, we call it dry heating pad, or electrical hot pack, we can set time frame and heat interval. Therefore, it comes with a higher price. 

The third type, hot water bottle, which is much cheaper. The size is usually best for the tummy, or our hands and feet. But it might be too small to put over our shoulders. We must make sure the cap is well-closed to prevent any leakage. Yet, most of it is made by PVC so that you can wash it with water from inside out.

So, what to note in looking for warm pads?

First PICK THRE RIGHT SIZE 

Consider which part of your body region is needed most for this heating pad. Some people need it for their shoulders and neck muscles, some use it for menstrual cramps or warming up their body through cold weather. 

Is it long enough to surround your neck?

Is it big enough to cover your whole lap?

If you are want to relieve back muscles, definitely a larger hot pack will fit you better. 

Second PICK THE RIGHT SHAPE

Some hot packs design has stitches that run across, where the pad can mold nicely along with the body’s curve. The heavy pack has its advantage because it gives better contact too.

For the neck, some come with a long strap at both sides for us to tie a knot. This is good so that we can enjoy the heat pack while we watch tv, or read books.

Third, our considerations include “DOES THE HEAT LAST LONG ENOUGH?”

Sad to say, you can't tell if you have never used it. 

The bigger the size, the harder it can be microwaved up to a certain temperature. 

To fit into a microwave oven, the production company cannot produce an oversize pad too.

If you are looking for an entire back to relieved, an electric heating pad might be more convenient. 

So how would you know its heat retention?

My tip? check for amazon’s product review. 

The last factor that you should think about is, do you want to WASH IT occasionally?

It’s not a big problem if you are the only person who uses this hot pack. 

But if it’s going to be shared among your family members. Hygiene is one concern.

It’s better to be washable. 

Check if you can wash the cover. 

Check if the fur on the heat pad is detachable. 

I don’t recommend after you place your foot on the hot pack today, it would be on someone’s neck the other day.

After all these, I hope you now have better information on which type of hot pack to choose, in terms of size, money, shape, and safety. 

In the next episodes, we will be talking about the safety tips in using heating pads. Please stay with us.

 Outro Promo

 I respect housekeepers, helping hotel housekeeping or cleaners are my main goal in creating Strainless Work and this podcast. 

If you have questions on muscle and joint problems in cleaning up your home or workplace.

Do drop me a note in my Facebook group “Painfree housekeeper”. More resources are waiting for you at our website that you can find in the bio. 

Thank you for staying with us.

I am Daisy Kwok, host of this podcast

Safety and Health in Hotel Housekeeping 

It means a lot to me if you would consider subscribing to it. Until then, Take care!

Production

Safety and Health in Hotel Housekeeping is the production of Strainless Work