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A long day can leave its mark on your body. Hours at a desk may make your shoulders feel tight, standing can tire your legs, and a demanding workout can leave muscles feeling heavy or tender.
Fortunately, caring for tired muscles doesn’t have to involve a complicated recovery program. Gentle movement, massage, rest, hydration, and other simple habits can all have a place in an evening routine.
It also helps to know what kind of discomfort you are experiencing. Everyday stiffness after sitting or standing for hours is different from delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS), which typically develops one to three days after unusually strenuous exercise (Cleveland Clinic, 2025). Knowing the difference can help you respond sensibly rather than automatically treating every ache the same way.
Start With Gentle Massage
Massage is one of the simplest ways to give tired muscles some attention at the end of the day. You don’t necessarily need an intense deep-tissue treatment. A few minutes of gentle self-massage may be enough to make an evening routine feel more relaxing.
Research is particularly encouraging for massage after strenuous exercise. A systematic review and meta-analysis of 99 studies found that massage was associated with reductions in DOMS and perceived fatigue after exercise (Dupuy et al., 2018). Another meta-analysis reported lower muscle-soreness ratings at 24, 48, and 72 hours among participants who received massage after strenuous exercise (Guo et al., 2017).
A massage product can reduce friction between the hands and skin, particularly when working over larger areas such as the thighs, calves, or shoulders. Some adults incorporate a conventional massage lotion, plant-based oil, or an oil with broad spectrum CBD into this type of body-care ritual.
The massage itself has a clearer evidence base for post-exercise soreness than topical CBD specifically. CBD products should therefore not be treated as substitutes for medical care or assumed to treat muscle injuries. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notes that many nonprescription CBD products haven’t been evaluated for effectiveness, appropriate dosage, drug interactions, or other safety considerations (FDA, 2023).
Whatever product you use, follow its directions and stop if skin irritation develops.
Keep Moving, but Keep It Easy
When your body feels tired, collapsing onto the couch can be tempting. Complete inactivity, however, isn’t always necessary for ordinary post-exercise soreness.
Light movement can feel more comfortable than staying in one position for the rest of the evening. Think of an easy walk around the neighborhood, relaxed cycling, or simply moving around the house rather than another demanding training session.
Research into recovery methods has found that active recovery can reduce some measures of post-exercise soreness, although results vary between studies and types of exercise (Dupuy et al., 2018). A 2021 review similarly found evidence suggesting that active exercise may help with DOMS-related discomfort, while noting that the overall quality of evidence was low (Fleckenstein et al., 2021).
The key word is easy. Recovery movement shouldn’t feel like another workout.
Stretch for Comfort, Not as a Cure for Soreness
Stretching can feel satisfying after hours in the same position. If your hips feel stiff after sitting or your calves feel tight after being on your feet, slow, comfortable stretches may help you move through your normal range of motion.
Just keep expectations realistic.
Stretching is often promoted as a way to prevent next-day muscle soreness, but research doesn’t support that claim strongly. A Cochrane review concluded that stretching before or after exercise doesn’t produce clinically important reductions in DOMS in healthy adults (Herbert et al., 2022). A separate systematic review reached a similar conclusion when post-exercise stretching was compared with passive recovery or other recovery methods (Afonso et al., 2021).
Stretch because it feels comfortable and helps you unwind, rather than treating it as a guaranteed way to stop soreness.
Replace Fluids After a Physically Demanding Day
If your long day included exercise, outdoor work, heat, or heavy sweating, replacing lost fluids is another practical step.
The American College of Sports Medicine recommends replacing fluid and electrolyte deficits after exercise, with individual needs depending partly on how much a person has sweated (Sawka et al., 2007).
For an ordinary day, this doesn’t mean reaching automatically for specialized sports drinks. Water alongside regular meals is often enough when fluid losses have been modest. Longer periods of strenuous activity or substantial sweating can change those requirements.
Rather than forcing yourself to drink an arbitrary number of glasses before bed, make hydration a steady habit throughout the day.
Give Your Muscles Time to Recover
Recovery isn’t something you have to actively perform every minute. Sometimes the most useful thing you can give tired muscles is time.
This is particularly important after a harder-than-usual workout. DOMS tends to appear after unfamiliar or intense activity and normally resolves over several days. Rest from the activity that caused the soreness can give the affected muscles time to recover (Cleveland Clinic, 2025).
That doesn’t mean you must remain completely still. Everyday movement is usually reasonable when soreness is mild, but repeatedly pushing a very sore muscle through another high-intensity session may not be the best choice.
Think of recovery as part of your activity routine, rather than something separate from it.
Make Sleep Part of the Recovery Plan
Sleep is easy to overlook when discussing muscle care because there is no gadget, technique, or product involved. Yet it is a fundamental part of physical recovery.
A review published in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport describes several biological pathways through which sleep may influence muscle repair and recovery, while also emphasizing that more direct research is needed before firm clinical guidelines can be established (Doherty et al., 2021).
In practical terms, an elaborate recovery routine can’t compensate for consistently cutting sleep short.
A calm evening may therefore be more useful than squeezing another task into the day. Dim the lights, reduce stimulating activities close to bedtime, and give yourself enough opportunity to sleep.
Know When Muscle Pain Needs More Than Self-Care
Most mild muscle discomfort associated with exercise, stress, or minor overuse improves with time and basic home care. Persistent or severe pain deserves more attention.
The Mayo Clinic advises seeking prompt medical care when muscle pain occurs alongside symptoms such as difficulty breathing, dizziness, extreme muscle weakness, a high fever with a stiff neck, or a severe injury that limits movement (Mayo Clinic, 2023). Redness and swelling around a painful muscle can also warrant medical assessment.
Likewise, soreness that lasts much longer than expected, repeatedly follows ordinary activity, or makes it difficult to use part of your body shouldn’t simply be dismissed as tired muscles.
Massage and other complementary approaches aren’t reasons to postpone appropriate medical care. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health specifically advises against using massage to delay evaluation of a medical problem (NCCIH, n.d.).
Conclusion
Caring for tired muscles after a long day doesn’t require turning your evening into another project.
A few minutes of gentle massage, some easy movement, sensible hydration, and a good night’s sleep can form a straightforward recovery routine. Stretching can also be enjoyable when used for comfort, even though research suggests it shouldn’t be relied on to prevent next-day soreness.
Most importantly, pay attention to what your body is telling you. Mild fatigue after a busy day is common. Severe, persistent, or unusual pain is different and deserves appropriate medical attention.
Simple muscle care works best when it is exactly that: simple, consistent, and guided by how you actually feel.
This article provides general educational information and is not medical advice.
Disclaimer – Dr. Diana Rangaves, PharmD
A licensed healthcare professional must evaluate whether testing or treatment is appropriate for an individual patient.
References
Afonso, J., Clemente, F. M., Nakamura, F. Y., Morouço, P., Sarmento, H., Inman, R. A., & Ramirez-Campillo, R. (2021). The effectiveness of post-exercise stretching in short-term and delayed recovery of strength, range of motion and delayed onset muscle soreness: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Frontiers in Physiology, 12, 677581. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.677581
Cleveland Clinic. (2025, December 19). Delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS): What it is & treatment.
Doherty, R., Madigan, S. M., Nevill, A., Warrington, G., & Ellis, J. G. (2021). The sleep and recovery practices of athletes. Nutrients, 13(4), 1330. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13041330
Dupuy, O., Douzi, W., Theurot, D., Bosquet, L., & Dugué, B. (2018). An evidence-based approach for choosing post-exercise recovery techniques to reduce markers of muscle damage, soreness, fatigue, and inflammation: A systematic review with meta-analysis. Frontiers in Physiology, 9, 403. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2018.00403
Fleckenstein, J., Wilke, J., Vogt, L., & Banzer, W. (2021). Preventive and regenerative strategies in delayed onset muscle soreness: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Journal of Athletic Training, 56(8), 902–914.
Guo, J., Li, L., Gong, Y., Zhu, R., Xu, J., Zou, J., & Chen, X. (2017). Massage alleviates delayed onset muscle soreness after strenuous exercise: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Physiology, 8, 747. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2017.00747
Herbert, R. D., de Noronha, M., & Kamper, S. J. (2011). Stretching to prevent or reduce muscle soreness after exercise. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2011(7), CD004577. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD004577.pub3
Mayo Clinic. (2023). Muscle pain: When to see a doctor.
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. (n.d.). Massage therapy: What you need to know.
Sawka, M. N., Burke, L. M., Eichner, E. R., Maughan, R. J., Montain, S. J., & Stachenfeld, N. S. (2007). American College of Sports Medicine position stand: Exercise and fluid replacement. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 39(2), 377–390. https://doi.org/10.1249/mss.0b013e31802ca597
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2023, February 2). What you need to know (and what we’re working to find out) about products containing cannabis or cannabis-derived compounds, including CBD.