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Back Pain Can Be Prevented

Strengthen Your Muscles for Maximum Health

By Alexa Stanard

While high heels and heavy bags certainly are culprits, back pain often is caused by stress, bad furniture or a poorly designed workstation.

A weakened back is more susceptible to injury or strain, so keeping your back strong and healthy is crucial to your health and comfort. What causes this type of pain, and how can you avoid it?

Stress: As if it's not enough to be stressed out by your job, kids and unfinished housework, experts now say all that stress could be harming your back.

"That's where the mind-body connection comes, when you're under stress," says Harsha Jayatilake, M.D., of Michigan Wellness Associates in Livonia. "Your body produces a lot of stress hormones, which can cause muscles to go haywire. When this happens, coordination doesn't happen, and a person gets injured easily."

Stress causes muscles to go into a fight-or-flight mode, which can cause spasms that pull vertebrae in different directions and affect the connecting discs. Stress also can cause the muscles to painfully compress the nerves.

"A tight muscle is like a hard rock sitting on the nerves," Jayatilake says. "It causes it to spasm, which causes more pain, then more contraction, in a cycle."

Exercise is one crucial way to keep the back strong and healthy. But someone who is stressed might be more likely to zonk out in front of the TV than hit the gym, exacerbating the problem.

"As stressors increase, there's less desire to be active. That's a big thing," says Jon Nettie, senior physical therapist at DMC Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan. "You become de-conditioned, and the muscles become shorter or not as strong. Then you decide to do something, and you tweak [your back] and develop muscle imbalances."

He says that can perpetuate a cycle of inactivity, activity done the wrong way, and strain.

In addition to performing regular exercise, activating your body's "relax" mode can reduce stress and protect your back. Acupuncture, yoga, breathing exercises and meditation all can stimulate the body's parasympathetic nervous system.

Furniture: That comfortably worn-in sofa might be calling your name at the end of a stressful day, but it also could be causing back strain.

When it comes to choosing furniture, "Most people think the cushier the better, but that's not always the case," Nettie says. "You want to have something that's going to be firm to semi-firm and that will support you when you sit in it."

At Relax the Back in Shelby Township, a store that specializes in back-friendly furniture and accessories, store co-owner Peter Lowry says the key to helping clients is determining when they experience back pain.

"That helps guide us - whatever they're doing before the pain is the worst," he says. "If they're waking up with pain, we look at sleep items. Or we might look at a zero-gravity recliner, which puts you at proper angles at waist and knees, and relieves a lot of disc pressure. That's going to help open up nerve roots and reduce pain."

Furniture determines a person's resting posture, Lowry says, and if a chair causes someone to slouch, that can put pressure on the discs, causing back pain.

Ergonomically friendly home furnishings are being offered at many furniture stores. Gorman's Home Furnishings, with four locations in metro Detroit, carries such products in its Health Shop. The Stressless line by Ekornes includes chairs, loveseats and sofas that follow body movements, and correct neck and lumbar support in every position, and boasts the only chair endorsed by the American Chiropractic Association. Art Van furniture stores also offer a line of Interactive Health robotic massage chairs.

Work: Most of us spend more of our waking time at work than any other place. That means long hours sitting at a desk or standing and helping customers. A poorly designed workspace or lack of mobility can lead to strain and poor circulation.

The chief irritant, Nettie says, is the desk chair. Learning how to adjust your chair for better posture is critical. A good chair should have arm rests that move in and out to avoid shoulder shrugging while typing, which can cause neck and upper-back pain. It also should offer good lumbar support to prevent slouching, which can lead to overstretching of the back and neck, and ultimately trouble standing up straight.

"The front anterior muscles become tight," Nettie says. "Over a period of time, even if you want to stand upright, your muscles are preventing you. Then you're going to have a lot of postural strain."

Anyone who spends a lot of time on the phone should use a headset to avoid cricking the neck onto the shoulder, Nettie says. Place the printer away from your computer so you're forced to move around, and doing a few stretches throughout the day also is advisable.