Sleep comfortably on your side with your knees bent or on your back with pillows to elevate legs.
Select a medium firm mattress.
If you're getting lucky, let your partner be the more active participant. Lay on your back or side until you feel better.
Select a comfortable desk chair.
Proper posture at your desk. Sit up straight with your shoulders aligned and look straight to your computer monitor
Get up every 30 minutes and walk around.
While you are up, also do some basic stretches. Arch your back with your hands on your hips. Or reach for the ceiling and feel your back arch and your hip flexors stretch out.
Choose shoes with good heel and arch support.
Practice Safe Lifting. Bend at your knees and keep your body aligned. (feet, legs, shoulders)
Exercise and stretch your overworked or tight muscles.
My thoughts:
I'm not convinced any of this is breaking new ground. Sleep comfortably, get a good bed and chair. Wear supportive shoes. Stay active and don't sit idle for too long. No medical breakthroughs here, but common sense that should help you feel better.
For office workers, I'm a BIG fan of the get up and move around. it's good for your circlulation, it helps keep you mobile and prevents your muscles from tightening up too much. And my aiding your circulation, you will be able to focus better when you return back to work.
In this next video, a couple of techniques are suggested for relief.
The doctor suggests two different ways to "treat' your back pain.
Mindful breathing. In this approach, we are to focus on our breating. Breath in slowly, hold, then exhale. By doing this for a full three minutes, it will take your mind off of your pain.
Ice and Heat – The doctor suggests using a combination of ice and heat to deal with an injury.
My thoughts:
I like the breathing idea a lot. Regardless of how you came to have back pain, what you focus on expands. Meaning – if you focus on your pain, it will tend to get worse. If you can force yourself to focus on breathing or other things besides your pain, your tolerance and even the amount of pain you feel will diminish.
As for the ice and heat – I have mixed feelings. If you have pain due to some trauma or acute injury – ice and heat can be effective in reducing your symptoms. However, if you are dealing with chronic pain (more than a few weeks, months, years or longer) it is very unlikely that you have an injury. Our body has an incredible ability to heal. Even the largest bone in our body the femur can heal within 6 weeks – and pain only lasts for the first week or two. How is it then that an "injury" from 2 years ago is still causing pain? Maybe there are other things at work here.
To wrap it up, I'm not sure either of these methods will actually help you get to the real cause of the pain. But since neither of these suggestions are invasive in any way, give it a whirl and let me know if it helps you. For me, the breathing can help. Ice and heat have provide limited results. But that's just my 2 cents.
The video below was found on the web and shared some opinions. Give it a watch and look for my comments below.
A few of the points the doctor made were:
Your pain is because you sit in a chair and not cross legged on the floor.
He then states that the natural aging of our spines is the other reason.
Next he says that the pain comes from poor posture caused by ignoring balance signals from our brain.
My thoughts:
The chair isn't the problem. It's the amount of time we spend in our sedentary lifestyles. You can remedy this by getting up and stretching a bit every 30-45 minutes. Walk around a bit. Stretch to the ceiling, get a good arch in your back. Your hip muscles do shorten. Doing the overhead stretch to the ceiling will help lengthen these muscles. You'll feel it.
There are proven studies where imaging studies were done on a group of people WITHOUT back pain. Half of this pain free group had degenerative issues shown, yet they had no pain. If aging was really the problem, everyone would hurt. I know plenty of really old people who don't have back pain. I'm not sure this claim holds "water".
So what do YOU think about this video? Does it make sense to you? Or do you disagree. Leave a comment here.
Thanks for checking out my website. My name is Dan Buglio and if you are like 80% of the population, you've either had back pain at some point, you are currently having back pain or you will have back pain in the future. It's almost ineveitable. Maybe you are here researching for a friend or family member who's in pain.
Perhaps the pain is really bad right now and that's why you are looking for answers on the web. Welcome to my world. I have put this site together to post all sorts of information about back pain. The good, the bad and the rediculous. Everyone has an opinion about back pain and there's a lot of crap out there. From time to time I'll be adding my own thoughts and comments.
I'm no doctor and I don't play one on TV either. So please, don't construe anything you find here as medical advice.
What's the purpose of this site? Well, I'll be reporting on back pain in the news, celebrity back pain stories, current diagnosis and treatments for back pain. And I'll also be sharing my personal story and progress with my own back pain. If I find some resources I found helpful, I'll be sure to point them out.
Want to leave a comment? Leave one here and let me know your thoughts.
Keep your eye on this website. More good stuff is coming.
Thanks for checking out my website. My name is Dan Buglio and if you are like 80% of the population, you've either had back pain at some point, you are currently having back pain or you will have back pain in the future. It's almost ineveitable. Maybe you are here researching for a friend or family member who's in pain.