Heal Your Back Pain With Exercise and Advice from a Tokyo Chiropractor

"My back is killing me!" Does that sound familiar? The nagging, ongoing pain in your back. Maybe it has appeared and disappeared over the years. You might feel like you've tried "everything" to alleviate it, yet it lingers. Maybe it's not that your back is harming you, but rather that you are harming your back. So, what can be done?

Firstly, it's important to recognize the stressors in your life that are causing your back pain. Back pain doesn't happen out of nowhere, even if it seems that way. There is always an underlying cause. Check your lifestyle for these triggers:

• Sitting for prolonged periods of time (more than an hour at a time), likely in poor posture. Long work hours on a computer or tablet makes us sedentary for too long. This causes the body to fatigue. When the body fatigues, the muscles along your spine can't do their best work anymore and you end up in bad posture.

• Lack of movement and exercise. After long days of work, we often feel too tired to hit the gym.

• An old injury was never properly cared for and compensations in the body are now bothering you.

• Emotional stress is prohibiting you from doing the things you love and as a result, you are paralyzed and unable to let loose.

• A build up of toxins in the body resulting from a poor diet can cause physical pain in the spine.

  
  

Next, you must determine how committed you are to resolving the issue. Painkillers can mask discomfort, but they don't eliminate the root cause. Without a strong resolve to address the core problem, you'll find yourself repeatedly cycling through periods of pain and relief.

Consider the areas of your life impacted by this: your job, hobbies, exercise routines, self-care, and family life. Imagine how life would improve if you addressed the underlying cause of your back pain. How might it alter your relationship with your work? Could you finally engage in sports you've been avoiding? Would your family get a happier version of you? Let these visions of a better life motivate you to solve this issue.

Finally, you need the tools to address the cause of the problem. If you haven't already solved it on your own, chances are you will need some help and support. Fortunately for you, Tokyo chiropractors are available to help.

Follow these tips to move toward healing:

• Get checked for subluxations in your spine. This is what chiropractors focus on. If there is a joint in your spine that is not moving well due to fixation, scar tissue, tight muscles, or inflammation, it may need to be adjusted. Only chiropractors assess for subluxations and adjust the spine when necessary.

• Move around more throughout your day. Ideally, we alternate between bouts of sitting, standing, and moving through a variety of positions. Try to keep your body active, even during your work hours. Take regular breaks, ideally 3 times per hour. It doesn't have to be a long break. Even just walking across the room or doing 3 air squats will do the trick.

• Exercise even if you're tired. Yes, we need sleep and recovery, but we also need enough of a challenge to our bodies to keep the blood flowing and the neurology firing. If you are in severe pain keeping you from doing even basic exercises, ask your chiropractor what specific movements are appropriate for you. (Tokyo chiropractor Dr. Ariel Thorpe has specific, gentle exercises on her YouTube channel.)

• Stretch and foam roll your muscles to increase blood flow and improve mobility. This may include focusing on parts of your body far from the site of pain. Creating better circulation and motion in your neck can have a knock on effect in your low back. Every part of your body is connected, so caring for any part of your body will help the rest of it.

• Find solutions to your emotional stressors. If you are in a stressful personal or professional relationship, talk to the person directly about the issue in order to resolve it. If that is not possible, consider spending less time with them so they have less of an impact on your mental health. If you are worried about something, talk to someone about it. It will feel better to let it out.

• Focus on adding healthy foods to your diet. It is always easier to fill up on healthy food than to just cut foods out. Before you have a treat, treat yourself to 5 servings of vegetables and then see how hungry for that unhealthy food you really are. This will help the tissues around your low back strengthen and heal. 

Have questions about finding a Tokyo chiropractor to help your back pain? Reach out to Electra Chiropractic to book a consultation today.