In part one of this article, we went over the mechanics of back pain. Let’s get busy now and start learning about a variety of things we can do to help prevent back pain from striking. First, it’s important to have a strong back, and certain specific exercises can really help achieve this. Specifically, we need to focus on strengthening the muscles that support the back. Doing exercises that stretch the back are also important. If you visit the bigbackpain.com link listed below, there is a whole section on back exercises that you might want to try. Or your doctor can suggest some exercises you can do at home.
Second, your posture is really important to the health of your back. Remember how your Mom would fuss at you to sit up straight? As is the case with most of the things Mom told us growing up, she was right on with this one too. When we sit properly with good posture, our spines will be aligned correctly and our heads will be supported. If we are slouching on the couch playing video games, the muscles in our back will have to work even harder keeping our head up correctly.
Now, let’s talk candidly about your weight. If you weigh more than you probably should, your risk of developing back pain increases big time. It really makes sense if you think about it—having extra weight on your bones stresses out the areas of your body that are supporting the extra pounds. Because the lower back supports so much weight, being heavy is more likely to lead to problems. Believe me, I know from personal experience that losing weight is hard. It’s something that most of us with weight issues know all too well that we have to do, and we even know how to do it. But for one reason or another it’s hard to get started. For me, what finally got me going in successful weight loss was to give myself permission to do it very slowly. Eat a little less, and move around a little more, and the weight will begin to fall off. With it, lower back pain should also start to fall off as well.
Choosing back-friendly shoes is also important to preventing back pain. Shoes must be supportive and be comfortable. If you must wear high heels to an event or something, switch back to regular shoes as soon as you can.
Next, learn to lift things correctly. Don’t pick up your kiddo while turning to the side—this is a recipe for back disaster. Instead, get as close to whatever you are lifting as you can, bend your knees and grab onto the item, and then lift straight up holding the object up close to your body.
Finally, if you smoke, here’s yet another reason to consider stopping. Smoking, and more specifically, nicotine, blocks oxygen from getting to the spine’s discs. These oxygen-hungry discs become less able to repair themselves and before you know it they will collapse and cause chronic back pain.
Please don’t let back pain take over your life. In most cases there are definitely ways to prevent it and also probably a few things you are doing that cause it to happen in the first place that you can discontinue. Your back will thank you!
References:
www.bigbackpain.com/preventing_back-pain.html
www.spineuniverse.com