Lifestyle Changes That Can Help Strengthen Your Back

Living with pain isn’t something that you just have to put up with. Especially not when you can take some steps to prevent and even end the pain in your back. By making some simple lifestyle changes, you can strengthen your back and stop being miserable.

Exercise will always be the quickest, easiest method to ending back pain. If you’ve ever sat for a little while, then gotten up and noticed that you were walking stiffly, it’s because your joints and muscles aren’t as limber as they should be.

Exercise is something that helps with this. When you work out regularly, it boosts mobility in the ligaments as well as in the tendons, which helps the muscles work better. By exercising, you not only protect your body from strain or muscle injury, but your back as well.

Lose weight for your back’s sake. If you’re overweight, this is putting a strain on your back. Your spine and your back muscles have a load limit that was never meant to be exceeded.

This is for both lifting and carrying heavy things. When you’re overweight, you’re forcing your back muscles to work harder than they were meant to. You’re also forcing them to carry additional weight.

Every single pound that you carry over your body’s weight limit can strain these muscles. Not only that, but being overweight can cause you to have more inflammatory markers, which also impact your back.... 

The Biggest Causes of Preventable Back Pain

The thing about the back is that most people never really pay it much attention to it until it starts to hurt. Then they realize just how much they rely on their back for everything they do.

Back pain can be pretty miserable, whether it’s short or long term. Though there can be many causes for the type of pain in this area of the body, most are preventable. There are several common causes of back pain that you can work on avoiding.

One of these is back pain caused by straining the muscles. This type of pain is nearly always caused by lifting things that are heavy. When you lift things that are heavy, it puts a strain on the muscles in your back.

The reason this is common is because most people don’t lift heavy things on a regular basis, so their muscles aren’t used to that type of load-bearing exercise. It’s easy to think that you can handle a greater weight than your body can deal with.

Lifting heavy things can put strain on the spine and can cause inflammation or back muscle spasms. The way that you lift things matters, too. If you lift the wrong way, you may be twisting your spine, especially if you’re at an awkward angle.

It only takes a second to injure your back this way. If you lift heavy things from the ground and you’re not aligned correctly, this can cause back pain because the weight of the item or items isn’t spread evenly across the muscles.

Sometimes, it’s not picking things up from the ground that cause back issues. The pain can also stem from reaching overhead to bring something down to you. You can cause a strain in your lower back muscles and have pain from that... 

Diagnosing the Different Types of Back Pain

Back pain isn’t alike in every situation. Some types of back pain can be more serious. There are some autoimmune diseases that can cause long term pain in the back. This is something such as inflammatory arthritis and it needs to be managed by a doctor.

Continual lower back pain that doesn’t get better can be a sign of an infection, such as a kidney infection. But it can also be associated with endometriosis. If you have a stomach ulcer, this can cause back pain as well.

All of these situations would need medical intervention. If you have a fever associated with back pain, you need to seek help - or, if you have numbness or fever in connection with the pain.

If you have numbness in your arm, hand or foot but with no fever, this can be a sign of a pinched nerve in the back. If these symptoms don’t go away after a couple of days of home treatment, then you should seek care.

You can also experience what’s known as a bulging disc that can cause pain. This is when the jelly-like substance, which basically acts like a shock absorber, protrudes. These are often treated at home, though some can be more difficult to treat and need to be examined by a doctor.

However, the majority of back pain isn’t serious and can be treated and managed at home. That’s because most back pain stems from lifestyle decisions. If you’re someone
who has bad posture and you’ve never taken steps to correct it, eventually, this can lead to back pain.

When you don’t sit or stand correctly, what happens is your body weight is not evenly distributed across the spine. So you end up with areas of weakness due to the load the muscles are trying to support... 

Lower Back Pain Is a Big Problem for Both Men and Women

When you experience lower back pain, you may have a variety of symptoms. Some people will feel like they have a muscle ache or that the muscle in one area of the back is tender.

But other people may have pain that feels like something is burning beneath their skin. Common in both of these symptoms is that physical movement can make the pain worse.

You’ll find that you start limiting yourself physically. Or, it might cause you pain to stand, so you sit more often, which can actually worsen back pain due to the increased inactivity.

Lower bBack pain is common for both men and women. Between 50 to 70% of both sexes will, at some point in their life, have to deal with back pain. This type of pain isn’t just limited to adults, either.

Kids and teens can also have problems that cause pain in the back. There are certain physical conditions that can be labeled as the underlying cause of back pain if it’s not something like an injured muscle.

For example, in women, endometriosis can cause lower back pain. Men usually experience back pain due to a ligament strain from lifting more than they should or lifting in such a way that their back muscles are unsupported.

Regardless of what causes the pain for women or men, there are consequences when it does happen. When you’re in pain, it can make physical activity worse, so it can lead to missing days or weeks of work, which also means lost wages, causing stress in your life.... 

If you have a job that’s sedentary, just the act of sitting can be too uncomfortable. Studies have shown that between 80 to 90% of people who suffer from back pain end up missing a significant number of work days.

Dealing with lower back pain can lead to depression. One study showed that depression is four times more likely to occur when people struggle with back pain. This is because of the way the pain affects all areas of their lives.

For example, having this type of pain can make sleeping uncomfortable or even cause insomnia. This affects your mood because you’re exhausted from the lack of sleep. You may have issues with cognitive function and feel anxious as well.

When lower back pain is an issue, you can struggle from a lack of mobility. This can keep you housebound and limit the amount of interaction you would normally have with other people.

This lack of interaction leads to isolation, which can cause depression or deepen it. If you’re used to being able to take care of your own needs or those of your family members, being unable to do so can also cause depression.

Simple Back Pain Solutions

It doesn’t take much to cause excruciating back pain. There are many reasons men and women begin to suffer from reoccurring back pain. Most people think automatically know that it correlates to lifting heavy items incorrectly, but there are some causes that may surprise you.

Sometimes, all it takes is stepping or moving in the wrong direction, and the next thing you know, you’re hurting. This pain not only happens in the point of injury, but sometimes travels down your leg, too.

Back pain can last days or even years if you don’t take steps to alleviate it and correct the issues that are causing it to reappear over time. Some are simple fixes, while others may require more effort, but the relief you feel from banish back pain will be worth it...