Back pain is, by far, the most common source of pain and disability currently affecting adults. It’s caused by a huge range of things, from sedentary lifestyles to our working posture to old sports injuries, and so on. Not all back pain is the same and it’s worth talking to your doctor to find ways to address your own individual needs. However, here are a few general tips that can help manage the vast majority of kinds of back pain.
Your weight is going to make a difference
While no-one should be shamed for their weight, we can’t neglect that it does make some pretty major differences to our physical health. Effectively, the more weight you have, the more pressure is going to be put on your back. When it comes to managing your weight, diet contributes to 80% of all changes. Cutting calories alone is not enough to constitute a healthy diet, but there’s no denying that managing portion sizes plays the largest role in weight changes. To that end, it might be worth looking at apps that measure both the calories and nutrients of your diet, helping you track and make changes to your eating habits as time goes on.
Ensure good posture
Your weight is the cause of the pressure that is placed on your spine, but you have control over how your spine manages that pressure, as well. That is effectively what good posture is all about. If you spend a lot of time leaning forward or hunched over, then more weight is going to focus lower on the back, for instance, which is one of the most common causes of back pain. Good ergonomics is all about making sure that your spine gets the support that it needs. This usually means having a way to prop up the small or your back and support for your neck so that your weight isn’t all pressing directly down on your spine. Good posture while standing is as important as sitting right, too.
Using the power of the herb
It is thankfully a topic that has been getting consistently less contentious as time goes one, as hemp products have long been known to have properties that can help ease all kinds of pain. We simply haven’t been able to talk about them til now. You don’t need to go as far as using medical marijuana which contains the psychoactive component of THC, either. The non-psychoactive CBD can be very effective as managing pain, as well. For instance, there are some CBD creams for pain that can be applied directly and topically onto the affected area to help soothe not just the pain symptoms themselves, but the inflammation that is often at the source of that pain, in the first place. If you are in pain because of an injury,it’s worth hiring a personal injury lawyer.
Exercise with care
Firstly, before you take on any kind of physical activity, make sure that you talk to your doctor about it. Ask them for recommendations and if you get the all-clear, make sure that you’re working out as carefully as possible. Low-impact exercises such as walking and swimming can help ensure that you’re not exacerbating your back pain, helping you build the muscles that can support it. However, it’s crucial that you take the time to follow a complete recovery routine. Failing to warm down and stretch after an exercise and not giving yourself enough rest time can end up exacerbating existing back pain, not to mention leading to a risk of entirely new musculoskeletal injuries that you’re going to have to deal with.
See a physical therapist
Exercising on your own with some good advice can help you fight back pain. However, doing physical activities with the help of a licensed specialist can improve your results several times over. Physical therapists can teach you specialized exercises and help you design a routine that is specifically designed to help build strength in your back, ensuring a strong core that can stop that pain from getting worse in the future. Furthermore, they also typically teach their clients how to ensure good posture throughout their daily life. They can’t offer immediate results but, over time, they can make a marked difference in how much you experience back pain if you experience any by the time that they’re done with you.
Sleep with care, too
Poor sleeping habits and back pain have a very complicated and close relationship. Back pain makes it harder to sleep, while a lack of sleep causes our body to produce cortisol, the stress hormone, which can then tense our muscles, making our back pain even worse. For a lot of people, changing your sleeping position and finding the right mattress can help make your sleep a lot easier to find, however. Sleeping on your side can make it so that there’s less pressure on your back during the night, and a softer mattress can cushion the pressure points that typically take your body weight while sleeping on your side, as well.
Have a cup of tea
This isn’t to suggest that tea is some kind of miracle cure as some of its more enthusiastic proponents might claim. However, some teas, like ginger-green tea do have legitimate health benefits that have been widely researched. One such benefit is that they are a very powerful anti-inflammatory. What this means is that they can reduce and soothe the inflammatory response that sees the tissue around your joints and back swelling. When inflammation strikes, it causes more pressure and friction on the bones and joints which then leads to worse back pain. Foods like ginger-green tea introduce anti-inflammatory agents that build up in the bloodstream and then work to prevent new instances of inflammatory pain.
Once more, you should only take the tips above if you’re working with your doctor to find and address the specifics of your back pain. Acting without any input from a medical specialist can be dangerous and should not be recommended for anyone to do.