Hand help

One of the defining characteristics of the worship at my church has been the drums. Well, recently I have become a rather consistent part of the drum chorus--three or four djembes that play along with the worship. My question is this: how do you play a djembe for a long period of time (the singing portion of worship went almost two hours yesterday) without making your hand swell up? After worship I put, with some difficulty, my ring back on my right hand (it cuts up my finger if I keep it on and play), and was unable to take it off the rest of the day--my finger(s) were that swollen. Maybe it's normal, but I'm not exactly a percussion expert... Anybody know?