In today’s busy world, we have less time to focus on our organic relationships. In particular, hectic and sedentary modern life greatly reduces opportunities to healthily interact with our own bodies. In response, they protest and the most common form is with back pains. It’s not about setting aside time for exercise or simply a one-off therapy session. We need to re-invest in this relationship with our backs by making the following life sweeping amends to relieve back pain.
Don’t Put Your Chair In Charge
Whether it’s a time for relaxing or business, it’s almost ubiquitous to simply forget about ourselves and orphan our bodies into chairs and couches. Because these fixtures do all the heavy holding and lifting of our backs, the muscles along our spines weaken from lack of relevance, making them less capable of self-support. Instead, when in chair or sofa, rely less on the backrest and sit up with spine straight using your own body. Also, cut back on those urges of total physical abandonment to lay down completely. Start small and lengthen gradually, and over time you’ll be able to do it longer and longer.
Get Out Of Those Slump Forward Standing Postures
Due to the modern life of remote-controlled comfort, we tend to love the path of least resistance, and when standing it happens to be slouching forward. This forces the upper back to balance the upper body when it should be the middle and lower spine, bringing you out of alignment and pain into the shoulder regions. Therefore, be more mindful of your posture, bringing it back into the natural ever slightly backward curvature of your spine when upright. It may take constant reminding at first, but eventually, you’ll get there. When sleeping, it’s best to lie flat and stretched out on your back rather than turning to the sides or other asymmetrical positions which can skew the muscle balance along with your core. Like all restored relationships, your new upright and head-up-high posture will also leave you feeling good about yourself and this will show up in the rest of your life.
Spend Quality Time With Your Back Through Yoga Poses
We’re often great at, or at least attentive to untying the knots in our careers and personal issues. Well, throughout our day to day the same level of nuances, mysteries, unresolved tensions and stress are also having proxy wars along our backs.
Yoga poses being holistic rather than focusing on individual muscles, address all of these as a whole, releasing stress and building strength where needed and increasing your ability to hold the healthiest postures, for a back that is fully aligned and which can respond to challenges with both sturdiness and flexibility.
Cheer It Up With Yoga Breathing and Meditation
Equally important as the poses are Yoga Pranayama (breathing) exercises. Shallow, hurried or uneven breaths or those of different speeds causes the body to behave inconsistently, creating uneven tension. Instead, let your inhales and exhales be slow, follow a steady rhythm, and go deep. The effect also brings calm to everything you do, reducing stress and with it the way your back tenses in response to that stress.
Accompany this wholesome breathing with meditation. Close your eyes, release all thoughts and place all of your attention on your breathing. Make your breaths deep and follow them in your mind from the entrance in your throat all the way to their flow through your chest and down your spine.
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