How to avoid pain from wearing binders and corsets

Gender dysphoria is something that most crossdressers and transgenders have to deal with on a daily basis. It's highly influenced by the shape of our own bodies, in most cases by our chests and waists, because those are the most biologically divergent areas between males and females. To deal with this issue, it's rather common to see male-to-female crossdressers and trans women wearing corsets, waist cinchers and breast forms to improve their hourglass figure, as well as female-to-male crossdressers and trans men wearing binders to get rid of their breasts. Those are some tricks that are really useful and can do wonders to change your natural shape into one that's more common to the opposite gender. However, the pressure and physical efforts needed to endure wearing these garments for a great amount of time, candy end up rendering you tired, hurting you and making it hard for you to breath. To avoid being hurt, I bring you this article with useful tips to change your appearance and improve your shape in a healthier way.

1 - Give yourself a break from time to time

Avoid too much time on a corset or binder if you can. Using them 24/7 will make you sweat a lot, prevent your skin from breathing and even hurt you internally. Try not to sleep wearing those garments, an establish a limit of time to wear them (about 2 to 3 hours maximum). If you plan to go out using them, take a shower and use the toilet before and don't eat too much after that. The compression caused by corsets and binders will make you a lot more uncomfortable if you eat too much.

2 - Avoid walking too much

If you are going out dressed up, get a ride or an Uber to get to your destination if it's far from your home. Walking all the way there might end up making you expend more energy and get tired faster. To keep yourself in good conditions to enjoy the night, avoid walking as much as you can, so you'll have plenty of energy to expend with your friends. Also, walking dressed up, especially if you are alone, can be dangerous if you encounter intolerant people, and this should be avoided.

3 - Make yourself comfortable by wearing the right size

I know, dressing up in garments of smaller sizes can be tempting, considering that it will compress you a lot more than the regular sizes, but it's also very harmful. It's not supposed to be worn by people who would normally use higher sizes, so they are not going to be comfortable. If it doesn't fit you, it wasn't designed for your body type, so you need to expend a lot more energy to wear it. Besides that, you could probably hurt yourself or damage the product, rendering it useless. So pay attention to the size charts, and buy whatever fits you best, bringing you the most benefits and the least harm as possible.

4 - Exercise yourself

Keeping a healthy exercise routine is the best for you to adapt your body to the conditions that you may find while wearing shapewear. Cardio exercises, such as running and walking, will make you more adapted to endure the pressure caused by the garments, and as a consequence, you'll be able to breath easily. In the case that you are a Male-to-female crossdresser, cardio will also help you to achieve a hourglass figure naturally, by reducing the body fat located in your waist area. If that's the case, squatting exercises can also help you to increase your hips and enhance your figure. Just remember that exercises are good for your health in general, and living a fitness life will only bring positive things to your life.

5- Make sure to wash and dry your shapewear on a regular basis

If you are wearing shapewear, you're probably sweating a lot. And that sweat ends up all over your garments. If you put them straight on the closet after wearing them for a few hours, chances are that this sweat,combined with the fact that you are storing it on a closed location with poor air flow, makes up the perfect environment for the proliferation of fungi and bacteria, and you surely don't want those organisms to be in contact with your skin, because they can damage it and cause allergies. To avoid that scenario, wash everything as soon as you get them off, and let them dry in an area with enough sunlight and air flow. This will make it impossible for bacteria and fungi to proliferate, as well as for the shapewear to smell bad.

Written by Elise Wren