3 New Year’s Resolutions for Chronic Back Pain Relief
With every new year comes new opportunity. Usually, when January rolls around, people take some time to reflect on their life and make resolutions to be better. They might want to lose weight, spend more time traveling, find a more satisfying job, or overcome a fear that has been holding them back.
But, not all New Year’s resolutions need to be monumental goals that take considerable dedication and time to achieve. Maybe, if you’ve been suffering from chronic back pain that just doesn’t seem to get better, all you really want in the new year is to live day-to-day with no pain. It’s possible. And, with just a few simple lifestyle changes, you could definitely find ways to minimize or alleviate pain that has been inhibiting your daily routine.
What New Year’s resolutions will help reduce recurring back pain?
1. Practice Better Posture to Eliminate Stress on Your Spine
Better posture is important for everyone to maintain a healthy spine, but this is especially important for back pain sufferers. Make an intentional effort to improve your posture at all times. When your sitting, driving, walking and even sleeping, making sure your spine is adequately supported and not under stress and significantly decrease acute and chronic pain symptoms.
Give yourself some motivation to stick to this resolution by purchasing a new chair, buying a back support pillow for your car, or even looking into a new mattress. Take the steps you need to help your spine feel relief.
2. Increase Moderate Physical Activity to Help Muscles Stay Loose
Everyone knows that exercise is important. Exercise keeps your body healthy, fit and less prone to injury. But, with chronic back pain, physical activity can be difficult, if not impossible.
However, there are ways to be physically active without pain-inducing exercise. If walking or running is too painful, try stretching and mobility exercises. Start slowly with simple stretches every day as a part of your daily routine, like when you’re watching evening TV, for example. Make stretching a habit, and you will see improvement in flexibility and mobility that can help to reduce back pain, too.
3. Commit to Finding Ways to Reduce Stress
Oftentimes physical pain, like debilitating back pain, is seen as a direct result of a physical condition or physical injury. However, stress and emotional can have a huge impact on your physical well being. Take the opportunity in the new year to make eliminating stress from your life a new habit.
Stress causes your muscles to tense and after prolonged periods of time can weaken or damage muscles. Find a new stress-reducing hobby, like yoga, meditation, nature walks or whatever you need to get away from life stressors regularly and improve your overall physiological health.
How Champey Pain & Spine Can Help
A Champey Pain & Spine Group, we know that dealing with a chronic, painful condition is never easy. If you have questions about this post, or would like to speak to one of our spine specialists, please contact us today by clicking the button below.
