How to Improve Posture » Natural Back Pain Relief

Back Pain – Causes and Cures

Eric — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 22:51:37 +0000

Millions of people suffer from back pain all over the world. For some, it can be a mild annoyance, but for others, it can be an excruciating experience that has them not wanting to move. No matter the severity of your discomfort, almost everyone wants to find a way to stop the pain fast.

It is very important to keep you back in great shape. Spinal health is one area many people may not consider, but the way you treat your back can affect your health for the rest of your life.

Exercises designed to work you back muscles can be helpful with pain and discomfort. Those that focus on the back will strengthen the muscles, preventing general discomfort when they are worked hard.

It is essential to seek professional advice on the exact cause of your discomfort, but there are generally four primary reasons why someone would experience back pain. Knowing these causes can help you prevent the pain and promote a healthy back.

Weak muscles can be the cause of back pain. This would be obvious when you hurt your back after lifting or pushing something extremely heavy. However, carrying your own body weight can affect the muscles in your back if they are not strong.

The flexibility of your back muscles can also contribute to back pain and discomfort. This can be especially noticed when you bend a lot during an activity. If you are very inflexible, the pain can be apparent any time you bend, and not just when you have performed that activity repeatedly for a long period of time.

Back pain can also be created when you muscles are not allowed to relax. Resting or sleeping scrunched up in a chair can be very damaging to spinal health. It’s important to stretch these muscles out by lying down in a bed. Tense muscles can cause much stress and pain in your back.

Poor posture can also result in back pain, no matter how strong and flexible your muscles are. Constantly slouching when walking or sitting in a hunched position for a long time can lead to discomfort in your back. It is vital that you notice the ways you sit, and alter your position when the back pain begins in order to alleviate it.

Relieving the pain of your back can be easy if you commit to strengthening, stretching, and relaxing the muscles. Being aware of your posture and finding a comfortable one will also help eliminate discomfort. Promoting healthy sitting and walking habits where your back is concerned will not only help you reduce the pain, but prevent it from happening again.

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Posture Corrector – Will They Help Or Hurt Your Back?

Eric — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:57:55 +0000

Many health problems can be traced back to poor postures. Bodies in their most efficient posture experience better circulation, more effective respiration and, as a result, better distribution of the nutrients your body needs. Poor posture, on the other hand, causes fatigue which leads to chronic aches and pains. As our lower backs are a key structure in our bodies, these symptoms often manifest as back pain.

Resolving postural issues may seem like a lost cause. Our postures feel completely natural to us, even if we are told that they are inefficient and unhealthy. Furthermore, those same changes seem difficult and feel tiring. If the very things that can help us feel so strange, and only make things worse, how can we ever improve? Fortunately, there is a powerful secret which can eliminate both the pain and the perceived effort quickly, naturally and without as much effort as you might believe.

Poor posture is a quite common issue, and can be seen to some extent in almost anyone. The biggest cause of poor posture is muscles that are either weak, or tensed to the point of causing fatigue.

There are two fundamental ways to address problems of poor posture. The first involves using a back brace or other posture corrector to provide your muscles with the support they need. By redirecting your posture to something more efficient, the fatigue toxins accumulated during regular daily activities will slowly vanish and take the pain along with them. The second solution is to solve the problem at its root by strengthening the weak muscles that prevent attaining a correct posture.

Posture correctors are a great short-term solution, providing the body the support it requires in a way that demands little effort. Also, posture correctors are often recommended by your doctor, another appealing reason for considering their use. In fact, posture correctors are a great deal like training wheels. They’re a great way to begin learning how to ride a bike, but training wheels must eventually come off so you’ll learn to ride naturally.

Unfortunately, posture correctors have many associated problems, ultimately making them a highly unsuitable solution for almost all postural problems. Posture correctors weaken the very muscles that you must strengthen if you hope to ever have better posture. Over time and with regular use, other muscles weaken as well, making your problems even worse. Soon you’ll find your pain increased when the brace is removed, and you’ll likely associate your posture corrector with health and well-being. In essence, you’ve become dependent on the brace, and you’ll truly never be without pain as long as it is used.

A better solution by far is to strengthen the muscles required for good posture. This may seem painful, and like lots of excess work, but you can make much progress toward toning these muscles with as little as ten minutes’ work per day. Because these muscles are fairly small, they will usually strengthen more quickly, and as they do your pain will lessen.

In summary, posture correctors may represent a great short-term solution, though they should never be relied upon as a permanent fix as they create dependence and new problems. An exercise program, on the other hand, can resolve the problems permanently. It is fairly quick, requires little effort and can have you on a path to a pain-free back in no time.

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Neck Pain, Posture, and Tension – 3 Self-Massage techniques

Eric — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:34:36 +0000

There are various causes of neck pain. Posture and tension both affect the amount of pain felt in the neck. Sitting poorly too long at a computer or other habits can severely tense the neck muscles and cause pain.

In this article, I’ll give a couple of massage techniques to combat neck tension.

We’ll attack the tension in a few ways. There are many lymph nodes in the neck. Gently (I mean gently! They are fragile) massaging the lymph nodes is very soothing. There are also tendons, and massaging the connection between the muscle and tendons triggers a relaxation reflex.

First, there is a meridian (in Chinese medicine) that runs down the back of the head along the center line. You can take advantage of this by gently running your fingers from your forehead, over the top of your head, and down the back where it touches your shoulders.

The second massage technique is to pinch the large muscles on the back of the neck. Don’t massage the spine. Let’s call that off limits. Gently pinch the back of your neck between you thumb and fingers. Move up and down the neck, concentrating especially on where the muscle joins the skull, and where the neck meets the shoulders.

Massage technique number three is a lymphatic massage. Fold the second joint of your fingers like in the picture. This creates a neat massaging surface. With your fingers held together, press the massage surface against the side of your neck beneath your ear. Begin gentle circles up and down your neck. Repeat on the other side.

The last one is to get the rest of the flesh of the neck. Gently pinch the flesh all around the front of the neck. Get under the jaw, around the adam’s apple, all the way down to the collar bone. Just give many, small pinches to relax this part of the neck.

These massages can be used as part of a regular exercise routine to impart relaxation to sore muscles or to deepen a relaxation that you have already induced. You can also use it as a nice, relaxing break from sitting or standing too long.

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Tail Bone Pain And The Reduction Of Back Discomfort

Eric — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:55:09 +0000

Many of us spend much of our day sitting. Whether it is commuting to our workplace, and sitting for several hours and then going home and sitting to relax, read, or watch TV, sitting puts much of the body’s weight on the tail bone. If you are suffering from a painful tailbone, sitting will prove to be a very painful experience.

If you are concerned and think nothing can be done to remedy this persistent pain, you must realize unless you have experienced huge trauma to the tailbone, such as a break, relief from pain to your tailbone can be helped by a series of lower back exercises and a change in your posture. By incorporating a lower back exercise routine into your daily ritual, you will strengthen your muscles and be able to improve your posture and thus find relief from your tailbone pain.

Having good posture does not only mean standing and walking correctly. It also affects other aspects of one’s life, such as in the way you stand, walk, perform tasks, and even the position in which you sleep. All of this is important and must be taken into consideration when addressing tailbone pain. A good posture program should examine and deal with most of these issues, but many do not.

The tailbone is the last bone of our spine, and it is one of the most important bones in our body because it is one of the body’s most acute support structures. The spine is supported and kept aligned by hundreds of small muscles that must allow you to move about and provide structural support. The tailbone should be able to move freely, but unfortunately, that is not always the case.

Sometimes our postures compromise these conflicting goals. Unfortunately, the way in which we sit puts tremendous pressure onto our tail bone, which was not meant to support weight. Imagine, for a moment, the spine as separated from the body. The head, roughly the weight of a bowling ball, sits atop a wobbly and narrow support structure ending in a small point. Now pile on various internal organs around the lower spine, each applying their own weight to this tiny bone, and perhaps you begin to see why your tail bone may be experiencing terrible pain.

All of this pressure and weight presses in on this single small area minute after minute, day after day. The tail bone should move freely, but over time the muscles around it tense up in an attempt to keep you up-right in an inefficient posture. The tail bone locks into place, and soon all of that weight gets pressed against the newly-tightened muscles. That pain is a signal to adopt a more efficient posture, one where the weight is more evenly distributed.

Fortunately, fixing this is usually a simple change in habits. Your hip bones are much wider than is your tail bone. They are flat, and thus distribute weight more evenly. By tilting your pelvis forward slightly, you take weight off of the tail bone’s fine point and shift it onto the hips, thus freeing tense muscles to begin relaxing. As these muscles relax, the pain lessens.

Another way to help relieve the pain on your tailbone is to increase the flexibility of the lower back. Lower back stretches will help loosen and improve several lower back muscles, and will make tilting your pelvis much easier. Lower back stretches are not painful and they can be done standing up, and can be performed anywhere. Every time you do these stretches, you will feel significant temporary relief from your tailbone pain and overtime with such stretches, you will be able to end the pain for good.

When searching for a postural improvement program, ensure that it includes a solid routine of lower back stretches. Stretching the lower back provides the abdominal strength necessary for the forward pelvic tilt that will relieve tail bone pain.

Apart from not having to deal with pain, people with good posture appear more confident and self assured. Good posture changes how people view you and treat you. With a superb postural enhancement program, you will both be relieving your back and tailbones pains, and change how others perceive you. This can in result be one of the healthiest life changing decisions you can make.

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Lower Back Stretches – Key To Low Back Pain Relief

Eric — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:10:49 +0000

If you are experiencing pain in your body or your muscles, there is a good chance that poor posture is to blame! Slouching in chairs, slouching when we stand and generally living in a way that keeps our muscles tight is something that is easy to get into, and after a while, we are simply not aware of it.

If you’re worried that your pains will stay with you forever due to poor posture, it’s important to realize that, unless due to a medical condition such as scoliosis, many postural problems are easily correctable. Good posture is a learnable skill. We stand, walk and sit the way we have all our lives because it’s what feels natural, and when we hurt later because of it, we don’t associate that pain with an action in the same way we might if we were to, say, burn our hands on a stove. By learning what is necessary for good posture, and by consciously changing patterns that lead to pain later, we can learn ways to eliminate many sources of hurt naturally and reliably.

Also remember that when you are thinking about good posture that you should do more than just learn to sit and stand properly. Also make sure that your body is in a good place to stretch and bend effectively. If you stretch well, your body will be able to shed the toxins that build up through bad posture. Remember that improving your flexibility is something that should feel very natural to you. It should not hurt or burn at all, and you will find that if you do it correctly, it will be wonderfully relaxing and gentle. If your stretching makes you uncomfortable or puts you in pain, it is time to try something else!

When looking at the areas on our body that under a lot of strain, you will find that the lower backs are at the top of our list. That part of our body bears a lot of weight and you will find that it is active whether we are sitting or standing. If you are not standing up straight, you will find that the muscles in your lower back are even more tense than they would normally be. When you sit for long periods of time, your lower back’s mobility is more limited, leading to more pressure building up over time.

Since much of our time is spent sitting or standing, postural inefficiencies drastically effect the lower back. Experimentally slouching may not feel painful right away, but maintaining that position for hours and days at a time will introduce tension into parts of the body not designed for it. This tension translates into pain which is often treated not by addressing the poor posture, but by taking a painkiller.

Consider the fact that your spine is not a single straight unit; instead, there are more than twenty bones that are working together to create the flexibility that you need to move. The flexibility is something that can put a lot of tension on the lower back and over time, the tense muscles there can pull the vertebrate out of line. Not only is this painful, you will also find that it reduces your movement and your grace.

If you want to fix a misaligned vertebrate or if you want to reduce the chances of getting one in the first place, make sure that you work towards increasing the flexibility of your back and spine. Stretching can take care of this white nicely, and you will discover that stretching the muscles of the back will keep them loose and in doing this, will help you prevent injury to the area as a whole.

Lower back stretches need not be painful. Many are simple and enjoyable. They can be done standing up, thus requiring less space. You might even make them a part of regular breaks at the office.

If you are thinking about getting fit, remember that you should consider how much stretching your fitness regimen has. To make sure that you have posture that will not result in pain, make sure that you look to your spinal integrity. Given the fact that hundreds of the muscles in our body are located near the spine, you have to to take care of them!

Aside from experiencing less pain, those with good posture look more confident and sure of themselves. Think of the last person you saw stride boldly into a room, standing straight and tall while gazing directly ahead. Good posture changes how we are viewed, and in turn, treated. By both relieving your back pain and changing how others regard you, a good postural enhancement program can represent one of the healthiest life-changing decisions you can make.

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Three Tips for a Sore Tailbone

Eric — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:35:22 +0000

I’m going to share with you three tips for dealing with a sore tailbone. These tips specifically address tailbone pain caused by poor sitting posture or sitting too much on the tailbone. If you have fallen on your tailbone or otherwise injured it, please seek the help of a qualified doctor before doing any stretching or other kinds of exercises.

Dealing with a sore tailbone is certainly never fun. It can cause not only a great deal of physical discomfort, but it can also make doing your daily tasks much more difficult. However, in this article I will tell you how you get your back feeling better, and I will also share some tips on how to prevent a recurrence of this in the future. There are many possible reasons that one might experience a sore tailbone. However, one of the most common causes of this is having poor sitting posture. The reason for this is that sitting improperly by slouching or leaning back too much puts too much pressure on your tailbone.

Tip 1: Sitting Properly

While it may take some getting used to, learning how to have sit up and have good posture is well worthwhile, as it will help you to avoid future episodes of tailbone pain. The tailbone was not meant to bear weight, though most Americans sit directly on it, especially when at the computer. The tip I have is this: when you are sitting, direct the weight to the sit bones. The sit bones are the two parts of the hip bones that stick down. They are what you sit on when you roll onto one butt cheek. What you want is to sit on both at the same time and let the tailbone float free of weight. The way you do that is, while you’re sitting, make sure your back is erect. Then roll the pelvis forward, which will arch the lower back slightly. This should lift the tailbone up and relieve it of its burden. This might be a little hard to maintain, but with practice, it will do wonders for your lower back.

Tip 2: Take a break!

Remaining seated for long periods of time can also cause joint stiffness as well as back pain. Therefore, a great way to prevent pain in the tailbone area is to stand up and stretch on a regular basis throughout the day. This will really help to loosen up your joints which will consequently help to prevent tailbone pain. Go take a walk, which is one of the most relaxing things you can do to give a break to your poor tailbone. Review the tips for office chair posture.

Tip 3: Regular back exercises

If you’re already dealing with a sore tailbone, standing up and doing some basic stretching exercises can help to reduce the pain that you’re currently experiencing. Do some low back exercises to stretch and relax the low back. It is also important to incorporate back strengthening exercises, as well as body awareness exercises. These will develop the four aspects of back exercises: strength, flexibility, relaxation, and body awareness.

I hope that these tips help you relieve the pain associated with long hours at the computer. For best results, follow a complete posture program. Feel free to leave questions in the comments. I love to help people feel better in their body.

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Low Back Exercise: Use the Standing Forward Bend for Lower Back Relief

Eric — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:40:17 +0000

Anyone who has to sit in front of a computer all day knows the importance of flexibility. If you don’t get up every once in awhile and stretch out, your lower back becomes stiff and sore, and good posture hard to maintain throughout the day. So it’s your job to take the necessary steps to keep it from getting worse. The best way to do this is by utilizing the standing forward bend low back exercise.

Actually it helps maintain the entire back and hamstrings, but focuses in on the lower back. Can you remember the last time you got up from your desk and didn’t have some sort of pain back there? Probably not, and if you don’t do something about it you’ll wind up hunched over or worse when you get older. So let’s talk a bit about the way the standing forward bend works and how you can add it into your daily routine. It helps you have correct neck posture, helps with poor sitting posture, and can relieve a sore tailbone.

All you basically have to do is stand with your feet together and exhale as you bend forward from the hip joints. Now, while this yoga exercise can be more advanced, we recommend only doing what feels natural in a very relaxed way. You should be able to take advantage of this at work since you can do it standing up.

While eventually you may be able to put your hands flat on the floor, there are many individuals who won’t be able to do the more advanced versions. The advanced version requires a lot of warming up. The version I’ll show you here can be done immediately without extra warmup, so it is ideal for doing occasionally during the day. The best thing is a complete posture program, but this will help a lot, too. Slow and relaxed are the best way to do it. Here are the instructions for a version anyone can do:

Stand straight with your feet hips’ width apart
Place your hands on your hips
Keep your knees straight and drop your upper body forward towards the ground
Let your arms hang down towards the ground
Breath and relax
Hold the position for one minute
Roll back up to standing. Your head should roll up last

Throughout the exercise, pay attention to any points of tension that you may have. The mere act of body awareness will bring relief to the tense areas. This is a wonderful property of attention: it can calm many discomforts in the body.

This version of the forward bend is very good for relieving tension all throughout the back, but especially in the lower back area that receives so much abuse while sitting. If you take advantage of this low back exercise then you’ll be able to relax those muscles and get the relief needed to keep your productivity levels high and eliminate the low back pain.

However, it’s important to understand that your best option is making this a part of your daily routine. Only you know what you need to do to add this to your daily schedule, but we recommend before bed, when you wake up in the morning, or a couple times a day during your break times (especially your lunch break). This will not only relieve the pain you’re experiencing now, but also prevent it from returning.

In the end, lower back pain can be an irritating obstacle to overcome. While over-the-counter medicine can give you short term relief, you need to take advantage of a complete posture exercise system if you want a long term answer. You’ll gain more flexibility, less tension, and all the psychological issues that come with chronic pain. Best of all you can do it all naturally.

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Relief for Painful Office Chair Posture

Eric — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 23:50:08 +0000

I sit at a computer all day in an office chair. Posture is important to me. I even have an expensive chair, but it still hurts my back. Here are some tips for helping your poor posture deal with sitting all day long.

Take frequent breaks. Just stand up and walk around once an hour. I guess that’s the minimum. For a few day, I experimented with working for ten minutes then taking a two minute break. That worked pretty well.
Stand up as much as possible. Is there some task you can do standing up? I like taking notes on my whiteboard so I can stand up. Maybe you can pace while you talk on the phone.
As soon as you feel uncomfortable in your chair, take a walk. Just get up, save your work, and walk around. Maybe do some exercises. This alone will get you far.
Stretch frequently and adequately. Stretching relieves tension. You want to relieve lower back and shoulder tension before they become chronic.
Observe correct sitting posture. That means that you are sitting on your sit bones, back straight up, and shoulders relaxed. You can lean against the back of your seat to support your back, and also lean back in your chair. But keep your sore tailbone free of weight! You can do this most easily by tilting your pelvis forward, which will arch your back.
Put your keyboard lower than your elbows. Any higher and your shoulders tend to rise up to meet the keys.

These tips should get you a long way toward a pain-free sitting experience. The number one thing to remember is you want to establish good habits to avoid chronic problems. Doing a regular posture exercise program can easily make you feel better.