Finally Painless

Posts Tagged ‘Pain Relief’

It sounds a bit silly, but when you understand what to look for it turns out that sitting down can be one of the most dangerous things you can do for your back.

How you sit is a function of the chairs you sit in (including your car!), the height of the chair and table or work surfaces, the activity you do while sitting and the way you sit.

Some of this is certainly habitual – the way we sit and how we hold our bodies – but the chairs we use can also affect how we sit, how comfortable we are in any given position and how much strain we put on our back muscles and ligaments.

Most people tend to sit with bad posture more often than not. It’s not their fault, since their muscles weren’t trained from childhood to sit with perfect posture and their muscles have been trained to sit with poor posture for years. And the only time they sit up straight is when they remember to (sound familiar?) – it’s just darn hard work unless the furniture and seating we use makes it easy.

There are simple things you can do to remedy this and several things you can look out for to identify which chairs and seats can potentially cause you problems. Here is an excellent video that shows you what to look for and how to remedy bad seating.

Click here now to watch it.

Most folks need multiple types of treatments to find lasting relief and the last thing you want to do is undo everything you’ve accomplished every time you sit down.

Click here now to watch it.

Unless you have a congenital disease causing you back pain or if your back pain has arisen from a serious illness, for the vast majority of people any back pain that develops can frequently be attributable to their posture, in relation to their spine, in one way or another. The key significance of posture and back pain is the efficient distribution of your body weight around the body’s center of gravity, especially in the lower back/spine, both when at rest and moving.

Manage your back pain now!

Back pain, bad posture and bad habits.

In the vast majority of cases where back pain arises from bad posture it is invariably due to the person developing bad habits with their posture, which over a period of years they fail to correct. The bad habit causing the back pain could be something as simple as sitting in a slumped manner in chairs or being in the habit of hunching the back or shoulders when upright – all of which should be avoided if you want to avoid back pain. Also, being considerably overweight, not to mention obese, is a common factor causing bad posture, resulting in back aches and pains in modern America society. So, even the bad habit of eating more than our body’s really need should be avoided if you also want to avoid back pain.

Your muscles and your posture.

When it comes to avoiding back pains through bad posture you first have to understand the role that your muscles play in protecting you against back pain. Without getting into a creative design/evolution argument – a problem inherent in all of us regarding our muscles and our backs is that the spine simply wasn’t originally designed for upright walking. To this end, and to help avoid back pain, it is widely believed that strong back, chest and stomach muscles are required for a good upright walking posture, according to the spine that we have evolved with or inherited if you prefer. Whilst these muscles are important we are actually as reliant, if not more so, on the smaller muscles and ligaments deep inside our bodies that clad or surround the spine, to keep it upright and in good posture so as to avoid the risk of back pain; which they do by minimizing any compressions of the spine. In case you don’t already know, muscles don’t operate in isolation but are reliant on strong tendons joining the muscle to bone and ligaments that surround bone joints keeping them in place. So, in keeping a good posture and reducing back pain risks you have to make sure these deep seated muscles supporting your spine are ‘fit for purpose’ by exercising them, something which people with modern sedentary lives can forget to do.

Minimizing back pain by controlling your posture.

Going to the gym and building up your back, chest or abdominal muscles is one way to help improve your posture and reduce any back pain you might be experiencing. However, just how do you exercise those muscles deeper inside your body that are so important to having a good posture? The fact here is that the only way you can exercise those inner muscles is by maintaining a good posture. The spinal muscles control two types of movements: voluntary ones such as bending, rotating, lifting, carrying and pushing. They also control some involuntary, or sub-conscious ones, including: controlling our balance, maintaining our good/erect postures and, almost ironically, maintaining a good tone of the spinal muscles. Supplementary to this, there are some exercise techniques that can further help some people, like Pilates and some forms of yoga, to develop good spinal muscles. However, and to some extent following from the earlier comment, the single most effective way to properly exercise the muscles that both protect and support your back is to be constantly aware of your posture, adjusting and improving it – until the muscles strengthen and remove or reduce the back pain you’re feeling. This doesn’t just mean maintaining a straight back, level shoulders and head-up posture when standing or walking; but needs to also mean that you’re thinking about your posture when sitting or lying down and if you are overweight – dieting and exercising regularly. Using the references below, you can find further information on recommended postures but – remember this has to be a lifetime commitment if you truly want to banish that back pain for ever.

• http://georgiahealthinfo.gov/cms/node/128455?slide=2
• http://www.umm.edu/spinecenter/education/rehabilitation_for_low_back_pain.htm
• http://www.healthfinder.gov/prevention/PrintTopic.aspx?topicID=46
• http://www.nwhealth.edu/healthyU/liveNaturally/backpain.html