Everyday activities can be hidden reasons for your back and neck pain.
As promised in our last post, here are some more reasons for the pain you are experiencing in your back and neck. As you’ll see, it can be simple, every day activities that cause repetitive stress and pain. We’ll also show you what you can do to repair the damage.
Lifting and Repetitive Movement
By imposing a high compression force on the spine, the back muscles protect it from overextending. The back muscles become fatigued with repetitive lifting tasks, increasing the bending moment on the lumbar spine. This negatively affects the balance between bending and compression.
The repetitive motion of lifting can cause problems even if the objects are a light as a feather. Simple tasks like twisting and bending or turning over in your sleep can aggravate back pain if your muscles are already fatigued.
What Should You Do?
When you lift, squat facing your work, keep your knees bent and your back fairly straight, to minimize the stress on your lower back. With your feet wide apart, keep the lifted object as close to your body as possible to avoid putting stress on your lower back.
Be aware that you can still develop back pain when your muscles fatigue from repetitive lifting, even if you lift everything correctly.
Text Neck
We put strain on our necks and spine that can cause serious, lifelong problems, when we continuously bend our necks to read and work on our cellphones and other electronic devises. By bending our head forward and down, which we normally do when using these devises, we apply an extreme amount of pressure on our necks, resulting in conditions that if not treated could result in surgery.
What Should You Do?
Instead of bending down toward your phone, lift it to eye level, keep your neck straight and look down with your eyes. Take regular breaks and exercise your neck.
Stop to assess your posture after working on your device. There is an app that you can install on your phone which will alert you when you are holding your neck in the wrong position.
Uneven Hips
Just doing your daily activities may cause lower back pain due to the imbalance of having one side of your pelvis a little higher than the other. Uneven hips may be the reason for your persistent back pain when exercising.
What Should You Do?
Avoid crossing your legs while sitting. This will cause an imbalance in your hip area.
Sit in a chair and bring one foot across the other leg. Place your hand on your knee and apply pressure against your hand with your knee, then relax your leg.
If you are looking for relief from your back, neck or shoulder pain, call Innovative Chiropractic in Mill Creek, WA and we will help you determine the right treatment program for you. Your body and spine will function better both mechanically and physically with chiropractic care.
