What to do to prevent back pain
- Start doing some specific exercises to strengthen your back muscles. Just ten minutes of the right kind of stretching and strengthening exercises every day will make a big difference. Click here to see some suggested exercises.
- Learn how to sit and stand correctly, at home, at work and in the car. Click here to see wrong and right postures.
- If your legs do not naturally rest on the floor, adjust your chair height or ask your employer for a foot rest
- Learn to lift things correctly – keep the weight close to your body and bend your knees.
- Check out your mattress. Softer mattresses do not support the spine sufficiently. Recent developments in memory foam mean that a happy compromise is now possible with a firm mattress combined with a soft topper. Using too many pillows is another common cause of upper back misalignment. The head should lie flat with the body, so one pillow is usually enough.
- Make sure you’re not peering over glasses to read PC screens and putting strain on your neck. If you are, invest in a pair of varifocal glasses to cope with both short and long sightedness.
- Use the rucksack attachment when you are carrying laptop equipment around so the weight is evenly balanced.
- Find ways of dealing with stress – stress leads to muscle tension which can cause or increase pain.
- Keep to a healthy weight – weight gain creates a muscle imbalance which puts strain on the back
- Don’t smoke – it makes exercise more difficult and hinders the healing of body tissues