The human body comprises many systems that work together to ensure the body remains functional. However, some body parts can be affected by many factors that reduce their functionality and cause severe pains within the regions. One condition often suffered by older adults is lower back pain, although younger adults and children can experience it in rare cases.
Lower back pain is a widespread condition, and it is characterized by a sharp pain in the waist region. It often feels like a muscle ache or burning sensation in your lower back. Luckily, this condition is treatable and can even be prevented. This article will highlight expert ways to relieve lower back pain with simple tricks.
Causes of Back Pains
Back pain is characterized by a sharp pain in the lower back region, requiring immediate attention. But the first step to treating lower back pain is identifying the cause of the pain.
Many factors contribute to triggering or worsening back pains, but the most typical causes of this condition include;
- Ligaments and Muscle Strain: The most common cause of lower back pain is a strain in the muscles and ligaments surrounding the region. It is often triggered by frequent heavy lifting and sudden awkward moments. When these activities occur repeatedly, they can cause a spasm in your lower back muscles, often accompanied by sharp pains.
- Poor Postures: Another prevalent cause of lower back pain is the body positions you adopt during activities. Standing, sitting, and walking in a bad posture can affect the alignment of the spine, which can lead to sharp pains within the region. However, the most significant posture affecting spine alignment is your sleeping position, and sleeping on your stomach has been identified as one of the worst sleeping postures.
- Exercises: As shocking as it may sound, exercises can also trigger pains in the lower back regions. Of course, we all know exercises to be a treatment and muscle enhancement routine rather than a cause of unwanted pains. But adopting heavy exercises without knee and back braces or not easing into the activity can affect your spine or strain your muscles.
- Medical Conditions: As expected, back pain can be a symptom of a severe health condition that affects the bones or muscles. Arthritis is one prevalent health condition that triggers back lower back pain. In more severe cases, it can lead to spinal stenosis, a condition that narrows the space around the spinal cord. Osteoporosis is another medical condition that can trigger back pain, and it is a painful fracture in the spine's vertebrae.
Natural Remedies for Lower Back Pain
Pain in any body part can be overwhelming, depending on the severity. But it is never a good experience, and back pains are no exception. The discomfort caused by this condition and the fact that it can often lead to worse phases demands that it be treated promptly. Indeed, lower back pain can often go away on its own with time.
However, it may persist in other cases, and you certainly do not want to take this chance. Also, the inconveniences call for immediate intervention, and you can relieve lower back pain while sleeping with these tricks.
Exercising
Exercising is the first and most effective way to relieve lower back pain naturally. Specific exercises can target the muscles in your lower back regions and reduce the stiffness by engaging the ligaments, tendons, and connective tissues to make them more flexible.
You may want to get an exercise prescription from an expert physiotherapist for better effects. You may also want to consider using knee and back braces to focus the effects of the exercise more on the target area.
Some excellent exercises for lower back pain include riding a bicycle, swimming, or walking. You can start with these light activities before taking them up the notch eventually, according to the prescription given by your physiotherapist.
Improve Sleep Routine
As surprising as it may sound, medical experts have isolated poor sleep routines as a cause of back pains. Indeed, lack of sleep may only worsen an existing condition, but poor sleep postures rank among the leading cause of lower back pain.
Therefore, you may want to address your sleeping positions as soon as possible. Sleeping on your back with your head and knees slightly elevated with pillows is the best posture for relieving lower back pains. It helps realign the spine by reducing stress on pressure points.
On the other hand, sleeping on your stomach worsens it keeping the spine in an unnatural position. Experts have also advised that sleeping earlier and longer in correct positions can significantly help relieve lower back pain and make your muscles healthier.
Maintain Good Postures
It is already established that bad postures are the leading cause of lower back pain, and the essence of maintaining good posture can not be overstated. However, you should know that as much as your sleeping positions are essential for spine alignment, the postures to adopt while executing your daily activities matter equally.
Hence, you must develop good standing, sitting, and walking postures if you wish to eliminate lower back pain for good.
Make Better Lifestyle Choices
Yes, as unlikely as it may sound, your lifestyle choices can affect your physical health and cause unwanted conditions like back and waist pains. A sedentary lifestyle can weaken core muscles and make them stiffer while adopting an active lifestyle will promote flexibility.
Other lifestyle choices like smoking and excess alcohol have also proven to be bad for joint discs, so you may want to reduce your use of these substances.
Improved Mood
There aren’t many researches to support the uncanny relationship between mood and lower back pain. But there is about enough to indicate that a bad mood worsens lower back pain while good moods help alleviate it.
Since anxiety and high-stress levels contribute to back pain, activities like massage and meditation that supports the release of endorphins can help counter these feelings and make you heal quickly.
Conclusion
Back pain is a widespread condition that affects many adults, and many factors can trigger it. But it is treatable, and this article has highlighted some tricks to help you overcome this condition.
You can relieve lower back pain while sleeping with these simple tricks. But if symptoms persist, do not hesitate to contact your doctor.
