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Health experts estimate that up to 80% of the population in the U.S. will be affected by back pain at some point in their lives. Listed below are some tips to help keep you in the 20% of people with healthy backs.
1. Watch your posture, especially at work. When at your desk, do you keep your back straight most of the time, or do you continually lean forward at an angle? Sitting hunched over at your desk for extended periods can cause the muscles on the front of your torso to shorten and your back muscles to become weak and stretched out. Over time, office workers with muscle imbalances from a continually slumped posture may develop rounded shoulders and a forward neck posture, leading to chronic back and neck pain.
2. Get regular exercise that uses all of your major muscle groups. Even with the best posture at work, our bodies simply were not designed to be sitting in front of a computer all day. Muscles kept at bent positions for long periods can become contracted and may become difficult to fully extend when doing other tasks. Muscles not used at all can atrophy from inactivity. If you sit at a desk all day long, try to have some form of regular exercise scheduled outside of work to keep your joints lubricated and your muscles moving freely.
3. Try to take regular stretch breaks at your desk. Set a timer to remind you to take a break every 30 minutes, or purchase software with a window that pops up with simple stretches you can do at your desk.
4. Try yoga for back pain prevention and pain relief. Yoga is often helpful for back pain sufferers, as performing a variety of different types of postures generally help to stretch and strengthen all of the body's major muscles groups. Yoga can help prevent back pain by keeping muscles balanced, moving freely, and by lengthening and "decompressing" restricted areas of tightness. Sitting all day can cause a person's spine to become contracted and compressed. Office workers often find the back bend positions in yoga good counter balance exercises after being hunched forward over a computer keyboard all day long.
A 2005 research study conducted in Seattle compared yoga, exercise and education as treatment options for a group of back pain sufferers. After 26 weeks, patients in the yoga group reported less pain and better back-related function than patients in either the exercise or education groups.
Please note that if you already suffer from back pain and have limited movement, many of the postures in a general yoga class may be medically inadvisable or too difficult for you to perform. In that case, consider seeing a qualified yoga therapist for therapeutic exercises that may help. There are also many yoga books and videos available with gentle exercises specifically designed for people with chronic back pain.
5. If you've tried physical therapy for back pain and it didn't help, don't give up. Consider trying a different therapist with a different style and training. I'm convinced that physical therapy can, in some ways, be more of an art than a science. Just as not everyone who goes to art school becomes a great artist, not everyone with a degree in physical therapy excels at his career. The first two physical therapists I tried for back pain made me worse. The second one I tried gave me exercises that were aggravating my back, yet when I protested that I was getting worse instead of better, he told me to "work through the pain". At the end of my therapy sessions with him, I was in so much pain I could barely walk. (If nothing else, it was good lesson that continuing to exercise when in severe pain is probably never a good idea.) Yet the third therapist I tried helped me tremendously by analyzing my posture and giving me gentle, posture balancing exercises.
5. Eat a healthy diet of whole foods, making sure to consume a variety of foods high in magnesium. Among hundreds of other functions, magnesium is the mineral the body needs to release muscle contractions. Magnesium is also important for getting a good night's sleep, which is also important for back pain sufferers. Studies show that people with inadequate intakes of magnesium often develop sleeplessness and, even after falling asleep initially, may wake frequently during the night.
Guidelines for recommended dietary allowances (RDAs) for magnesium are set by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and vary based on factors such as age and sex. For example, the RDA of magnesium for a female, age nineteen to thirty is 310 mg.
According to a 2004 Gallop poll, eighty percent of Americans are not consuming enough magnesium from diet alone. Even when vitamin and mineral supplements were factored in along with dietary intakes of magnesium, only about thirty-five percent of the people in the U.S. were found to consume the RDA or more of magnesium. Without adequate magnesium, muscles can't relax, not just in the back but also everywhere in the body. Good foods sources of magnesium include most leafy green vegetables, pumpkin seeds, lima beans, Brazil nuts, halibut and white beans.
Please note that any information in this article should be considered as general information only and should not be used to diagnose or treat back pain or any other health condition. See your doctor for a diagnosis and treatment of any medical concerns you may have, and before implementing any diet, exercise, supplement or other lifestyle changes.
Copyright 2006 Pine Canyon Media, LLC. Reprinted with permission.
By: S. L. Simmons
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