You might be planning on road trips to visit friends and family over Christmas but be aware that you may be setting yourself up for future spinal problems. With back pain being the number 2 reason why we visit our GPs and costing the NHS £1.3 million per day, it is not surprising to see that over 60% of drivers in this survey agreed with the statement ‘my car seat can make my back ache worse after a long trip’ and maybe more importantly, over 40% of drivers said that the car seat was the main cause of their backache.
According to a recent survey commissioned by AutoExpress magazine, a poor seating position in your car can lead to both back and neck problems while a slouched position can also compromise your safety. A slouched position can alter the way you wear the seat belt, reducing its effectiveness while an uncomfortable car seat can also lead to driver distraction and loss of concentration.
So how should your car seat be set up to protect your back and neck?
Top tips:
1. Make sure that your car seat is not too far away from the pedals. When you fully depress the clutch your legs should remain slightly bent.
2. Make sure that your backrest is not tilted back too far. Your elbows should be slightly bent when you position your hands correctly on the steering wheel in the ‘10 to 2 position’.
3. Make sure that you increase the lumbar support as much as possible to support the natural arch in your back to avoid slouching. If you do not have a lumbar support built-in, you can use a portable, dedicated lumbar support cushion or roll up a towel and put it behind your back.
4. Make sure that the top of your headrest is above the top of your ears. If it is too low it can increase the risk of neck injuries in case of an accident.
5. Now, stretch yourself up and make your spine as tall as possible sitting in an ideal posture. Set the rearview mirror so you can just about see the traffic behind you. This will help to correct your posture every time you look in your rearview mirror, because if you slouch you will not be able to use the rearview mirror.
6. Make sure that your seatbelt is correctly positioned. If possible, adjust the height so it is not sitting on your neck and according to the Royal Society for Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), the belt should be worn as tight as possible, with no slack and the lap belt should go over the pelvic region, not the stomach.
7. Why not call in to the clinic and speak to a chiropractor if you are concerned about your spinal health and get your car seat checked as part of our service.
As we approach the Christmas season, you might be more worried about piling on the pounds and feeling like a Christmas Pudding on the big day than anything else, but you’d be surprised how many people hurt their back over the festive period! Did you know… There is an increase in patients coming in to the clinic with backaches and pains that have appeared during the Christmas period.
In fact… There are many ways you can hurt your back at Christmas. Bending and lifting heavy items like Christmas trees, furniture or even the turkey can easily strain your back or exacerbate existing aches and pains.
If you do hurt your back or neck during the holidays, your first thought might be to put your feet up on the sofa and watch some festive films and wait till the pain disappears.
But remember… Although this may seem like the obvious option, it is much more beneficial for your back to keep your muscles moving.
Here are our top tips to avoid back pain at Christmas:
If you’re lifting heavy or awkward objects like the Christmas tree or furniture, always ask for help and make sure you also bend your knees when lifting heavier items!
When you’re putting up decorations, use a stepladder to avoid over stretching or straining your back or neck
Make sure you go for regular walks over the holidays, and if you don’t have time…
Mmake sure you’re supporting your back at all times with a small cushion
The primary factors that can cause or worsen pain include poor posture, injury, too little (or too much) activity, and specific conditions such as arthritis. However, what you eat can also help to manage or relieve pain, or even prevent it injury in the first place.
Here are some of our top nutrition tips for managing pain.
Ditch the processed foods Processed foods generally refers to most things that come in a packet with a list of ingredients: from biscuits to ready meals to breakfast cereals. They often contain little in the way of naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. They may worsen inflammation and pain because they contain higher levels of unhealthy fats – in particular, processed omega-6 fats and ‘trans’ fats, which have pro-inflammatory properties. They often contain quickly absorbed sugars or refined carbohydrates too, which may exacerbate inflammation when consumed in excess.
In contrast, ‘real’ foods are as close as possible to how they are found in nature. They can include whole vegetables and fruit, nuts and seeds, whole grains, fish, eggs and meat (whole cuts, not ‘deli’ or processed meats). These foods naturally contain higher levels of nutrients that can help reduce inflammation and pain, such as those we’re going to look at in more detail below.
Eat magnesium-rich foods One of the nutrients that may help to manage pain and inflammation is magnesium. Magnesium helps our muscles to work normally, including helping them to relax, which in turn helps to avoid or relieve muscle tension that can contribute to pain. This mineral is also important for the nerves. Magnesium is found primarily in whole unprocessed plant foods – especially green leafy vegetables such as spinach and kale, seeds and nuts, and whole grains including rye and buckwheat.
Include oily fish Oily fish such as mackerel, salmon, sardines, herring and anchovies are high in omega-3 fats. These fats have anti-inflammatory properties and therefore may help to manage pain. The specific omega-3s in fish (EPA and DHA) can be more beneficial than the types of omega-3 found in seeds such as flax seeds. Aim to eat a serving of oily fish around three times a week. These can include tinned sardines and salmon as long as they do not contain added vegetable oils (olive oil is fine). Note that ‘omega-3 fish fingers’ are not a good source of omega-3 fats – stick to the real thing!
Get plenty of vitamin C You may know vitamin C for its role in the immune system. But in fact the primary role of vitamin C is in making collagen – a protein that forms the basic structure of most of the body’s tissues, including the bones, joints and muscles. If your body can’t make collagen properly, these tissues will lose strength and function, contributing to not only day-to-day pain but also potentially painful conditions such as arthritis and osteoporosis.
Eating a variety of vegetables and fruit is the best way to get enough vitamin C. Although ‘five-a-day’ is the well-known recommendation, we should be aiming for at least seven portions a day, primarily of vegetables, in order to get good amounts of vitamin C and antioxidants. Some of the best sources of vitamin C include peppers, kale, broccoli, kiwi fruits, brussel sprouts, watercress and red cabbage. If you can, get your veg and fruit from a local producer (e.g. a farmer’s market) as it can lose its vitamin C when it’s stored or transported for long periods of time.
Include anti-inflammatory spices The spices ginger and turmeric in particular can have anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties. Use fresh ginger and powdered turmeric in your cooking whenever you can, make fresh ginger tea with a grated thumb-sized piece of ginger. If you have a good vegetable juicer you can even make fresh ginger juice to sip on – but watch out, it’s strong!
Try avoiding nightshades The ‘nightshade’ or solanaceae vegetables may worsen inflammation and pain for some people. These are aubergines, tomatoes, potatoes (not sweet potatoes), and peppers – including chillis and all types of chilli powder (cayenne, paprika etc.). If you’ve implemented the other changes for at least three months and not noticed a significant improvement in your pain, then try eliminating the nightshade vegetables.
Consider eliminating gluten Gluten is a protein that’s found primarily in wheat, barley and rye. The most severe reaction to gluten is coeliac disease, where the sufferer has to avoid gluten for the rest of their life. But some people who do not have coeliac disease may also react to gluten in a less severe way, which can contribute to inflammation in the body. If you’re cutting out gluten it can be best to work with a nutrition practitioner (e.g. a nutritional therapist) for support to make sure you’re not missing out on any nutrients.
Most of us are aware of the importance of calcium for our health, especially for our bones. However, magnesium is another vital mineral for our bones, as well as for our muscles and nerves, it can actually be more difficult to get enough of this mineral in our diet than to get enough calcium.
The many roles of magnesium
Magnesium is needed for normal muscle and nerve function. Without
magnesium, our muscle fibres wouldn’t be able to relax after they have contracted, and nerve impulses wouldn’t be able to travel around our body properly.
Magnesium is vital for strong bones and teeth too. If you’re trying to improve or maintain your bone strength, it’s essential to include lots of magnesium-rich foods as well as calcium-rich foods.
Magnesium is also necessary for our cells to convert the food we eat into usable energy, and also for healthy ‘psychological function’ – including mood and how we deal with stress.
For these reasons…
Symptoms of not getting enough magnesium may include: muscle cramping, tight or weak muscles, increased pain, and loss of bone strength, as well as lack of energy, low mood, greater susceptibility to stress, and even poor sleep or insomnia.
As chiropractors we regularly see patients with these symptoms – especially pain and muscle dysfunction, of course. If any of them ring true for you, you are likely to benefit from getting more magnesium into your diet.
Where can we find magnesium?
The main sources of magnesium in our diet are plant foods, particularly the following:
Green leafy vegetables such as kale, chard and spinach
Seeds and nuts – particularly pumpkin seeds and hemp seeds
Whole grains – especially buckwheat and rye
Beans and pulses.
How much magnesium do we need?
The general adult recommended daily allowance (RDA) for magnesium is 375mg. Like any nutrient, our requirements can vary, and the amount of magnesium present in foods – even the foods mentioned above – can also vary. But as a general rule, we need to eat four to five servings of one of these foods a day to get enough of this mineral. (One serving is about 80 grams or one handful green leafy veg, or two tablespoons of seeds, for example.)
Remember…
Drinking milk or eating cheese to get your calcium is not enough on its own to maintain strong bones – make sure you get plenty of those plant foods too! Also, don’t forget that weight-bearing exercise is one of the most important things to maintain bone strength.
An NHS study revealed that half of us are affected by back pain and 8 million working days are lost due to work-related back pain each year. But here are many ways to avoid and ease back pain when working:
Be aware of your posture; when standing try to distribute your weight evenly across the front, back and sides of your feet. When seated, sit up straight; align the ears, shoulders and hips in a vertical line as much as possible.
Avoid prolonged positions; even a good sitting position can be tiring and put a strain on muscles. Try alternating sitting positions by sitting at the front of the chair then sitting at the back of the chair. Try to also get up and move about every 30 minutes. Take 2 minutes to stretch, stand or go for a short walk. This will not only stimulate your muscles, but also your mind!
Avoid unbalanced posture such as sitting with your legs crossed, leaning to one side, hunching the shoulders forward or tilting the head up.
Position your monitor at your natural resting-eye-height. This will avoid straining the neck as you look up or hunch down to your screen.
Exercise regularly; a good combination of cardio and strength training will strengthen muscles and protect against back injuries.
Get moving: the body was designed to move, and it is so important to keep moving. Even if you are suffering from back or neck pain, limiting movement will only exacerbate the symptoms. Try to do lots of gentle movement within a relative pain free zone, in order to prevent everything from locking up.
The most common cause of neck pain is when you hold your head forward for long periods of time. This places undue stress on the joints of the lower neck, as well as muscles of the neck and shoulders. By trying to pull the neck and shoulders back into alignment, and doing some nice gentle stretches for the neck and chest, you can easily correct this, before it becomes too problematic.
When you are suffering with back pain, whether it is in the neck, between the shoulder blades or in the lower back, it can sometimes be difficult to know what to do. Do you sit, rest, keep active, use heat or cold?
The most common cause of back pain is when the joints of the back become restricted due to abnormal stress such as incorrect posture, degeneration and emotional stress. This causes tightening and inflammation around the joints resulting in the muscles tightening (in order to protect that area of the spine from further trauma). Muscle tightness causes the joint to be even more restricted in movement and therefore causes more joint inflammation and the cycle continues. People suffer from different types of back pain, some with tightening but others without, and therefore they will require a different treatment plan.
Chiropractors have the skill of removing joint restriction by using spinal adjusting to address the underlying problems of back pain.However, secondary problems of muscle tightness and joint inflammation require ongoing treatment so there are certain things a patient can do to relieve the pain.
Cold Treatment
The recommended treatment for back pain without muscle tightness is a cold treatment. This is simply a cold pack applied to the injury, which acts like a painkiller reducing the inflammation.
A Cold treatment can be used in any area of inflammation. i.e. spine or joint inflammation and restriction, knee swelling, sprained ankle etc.
Hot Treatment
For back pain with muscle tightness a hot pack is more suitable. Tight muscles are usually tender to touch, you can sometimes feel pea-sized knots and crystals in the muscle. Using heat relaxes the muscle and improves flexibility. Hot treatment can be used alone over tight muscles when they have contracted due to overuse, or for aches following the muscle being used in a different way.
Hot & Cold Treatment
Leaving a hot pack on the spine for a long time can increase the inflammation and cause the pain to increase. In this case once relaxation has occurred a cold pack is placed over the area to help decrease the joint inflammation.
It is always best to consult a Chiropractor first but the advice is not to rest, but to try and keep active, manoeuvring the joint at least every 20 – 30 minutes. Combine this with the hot or cold method of treatment and you will help relieve the pain resulting in a quicker recovery.
Many people spend their working day in front of a computer screen. Correct posture when you are spending a lot of time in front of a computer is extremely important, especially when you consider that for those with back pain and related conditions absence from work takes up an average of 13 days a year. Follow the do’s and don’ts below to ensure your posture is as correct as possible:
DO …
Ensure your chair has adequate back support
Use a desk of an appropriate height
Take regular breaks to rest eyes, neck and shoulders
Stand up and walk around at least once an hour
Loosen neck and shoulders whilst sitting
Relax wrists while typing
DON’T …
Slouch
Use a low table or desk
Sit for too long at a time
Tense your neck, shoulders or wrist
Cross your legs
Bad posture habits start in childhood when we sit in front of the television, and at school desks, and they continue into adulthood, not only with computers, but when we are driving and slouching in chairs. Sitting and inactivity automatically worsens posture and in later life can cause osteoporosis and arthritis, making pain inevitable.
In order to achieve a correct natural posture you should flatten your back against a chair or wall, roll your shoulders back and down, and tuck in your chin whilst you glide your head backwards. Try to adopt this position every 20 minutes or so and eventually it should occur automatically, to improve your posture and prevent pain and longer term damage.
