When you’ve got back pain, the pain serves as a huge distraction throughout the day. Thinking clearly is hard to do when you have to focus on moving slowly and not bending over or the pain will surge. Issues with back pain will affect over two-thirds of Americans at some point in their lives. There are some reasons for this and we’ll address that with our advice on how to find some short-term and medium-term relief from the pain.
Here is how to reduce the number of flare-ups and the frequency of them occurring.
Home-based Physical Therapy
The inversion table uses the ever-present gravitational pull to reduce pressure on the points of the spine that are under pressure. You go from sitting upright to laying on your back at a convenient angle that takes the pressure of the painful areas of your spine. For people with sensitive spots that have flared up recently, just taking the pressure off lets the muscles surrounding the spinal column stop guarding the injured area, which is where much of the discomfort comes from.
There are good and bad quality tables. Look at the best inversion table reviewss to size up which models are made from good manufacturers and will stand the test of time. After all, once you get used to using one, you won’t want to give it up.
Stretching Every Day
Stretching your body out every day helps to keep the spine supple and untwist any knots that have developed under the surface. Muscles tense up overnight when sleeping in weird positions. The process of stretching allows the frame to lengthen out, the tendons to stretch a bit and the muscular structure to make small adjustments. Often this is enough to create some pain relief.
Losing Weight
With more than 60 percent of Americans still classified as overweight, the reality is that too much weight is putting added pressure on the support structure of the body; the spine and muscles that surround it. Discs begin to bulge, the spine gets misaligned, and the posture isn’t correct either.
When losing weight gradually over time, the reduced weight is felt right away as relief for the back and the rest of the body. Anyone who was overweight and lost weight can tell you that the natural pain relief they experienced was immeasurable. With losing weight, it’s certainly a method of pain relief that is medium-term, not short-term, but it likely will provide the best long-term relief.
Yoga
Trying Yoga out for the first time comes more naturally to women than men because it requires flexibility. However, plenty of men receive great benefits from it too. As you improve with moving into and out of different yoga positions, the body becomes more fluid and flexible. The spine usually responds appropriately to this gentle encouragement and pain relief is found as a result.
Improving your body posture when sitting at your desk or when working out is equally important to not make your back work harder than it is already. Yoga and cutting weight down will both help improve overall posture, as will getting some pain relief in the short-term too.
