Back Pain is Costing Companies Billions – Here’s What All of Us Can Do

Over the years I’ve spent a ton of time learning and researching about back pain. Did you know it is the leading cause of disability in the workplace worldwide?

Since the 1990’s it has been one of the most expensive physical conditions, costing 134 billion USD in 2016 in Northern America alone. These costs are related to treatment, not to mention work absences, lower productivity, and overall decrease in quality of life. If you, as most people in the world, have ever experienced an episode of lower back pain, you may know its far-reaching impact: the distracting pain, problems sleeping and difficulty performing everyday tasks.

I’m always trying to solve the puzzle of back pain but the reasons behind it can be many. Sometimes the reasons may be self-evident – an acute injury, or muscle soreness after a strength workout. More often, however, the cause is less apparent. Lifestyles of stress, excessive screen time, poor posture or even a bad mattress, can cause tension that accumulates and repeatedly puts our body in positions it wasn’t designed for. The pain may paralyze you suddenly when you’re picking up a pen or scratching a dog (both real client examples), but in fact, the causes have been building up for a while.

Pain prevention starts by understanding and addressing the root cause. For most of us – whether you are an office worker or a Formula One driver (both jobs that involve sitting)– the underlying issue is how long we sit… Sitting poses two big strains on your body. 

First, sitting is passive, which reduces your body control and coordination, increasing the risk for acute injuries. The second problem comes from suboptimal static positions. This tends to weaken some muscles and stiffen others, bending your spine into unnatural positions. No wonder people experience pain – it’s our body’s warning signal for actual or potential damage.

I love using principles to treat.

Osteopathy is a principle-based therapy and was established over 100 years ago. 

To effectively prevent back pain, three principles can be applied. Here are some tips and best practices for each:

• Boost awareness of your positions

How are you sitting or standing right now? Did you correct your posture when reading this? Becoming aware of the positions you spend your day in is the first and most fundamental step towards preventing pain. There is no “one perfect posture”. Everyone does, however, have an individual perfect posture: the one in which your spine is naturally curved and under the least amount of strain. Try tying posture awareness to an existing routine. For example, build a routine of straightening your posture every time you walk past a mirror or window, brush your teeth, stand in line, or put a post-it on your computer screen to remind yourself. 

• Move more – sit less

Movement is medicine. Increasing the amount of even short bouts of gentle exercise helps activate cell metabolism, reducing muscle viscosity and tension – and reminds your body to coordinate. What parts of your day could you do without sitting? Schedule walking meetings with colleagues, do your creative tasks outdoors in nature, work standing for 2 to 3 hours per day or get up every hour for a minute. If you want to look at tech for a solution you can invest in “core” activating seats: try an exercise ball, a saddle chair, or a balance board. (Do note, however, that it’s possible to sit in poor posture in these seats as well!)

• Counteract “the banana bend”

A client of mine once pointed out that she feels she’s “fallen into a symbiosis with his computer”. We have started calling this position “the banana bend”. It’s the natural consequence of too much sitting and forward movement without straightening ourselves out.

This banana bend, or flexed posture, causes tight hamstrings, hip-flexors, tight pectorals, a weak back chain, glutes and upper back muscles. In order to counteract it, we need to serve the body with a little counter exercises, i.e. lengthening tight muscles and strengthening weak ones. Little and often is better than much and rarely. 

Here is a link to some videos that show you how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd7bg5Nl6YpX8

 

• Share this post: