What effects can lifestyle improvements have on low back pain?

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You may be wondering how your day-to-day lifestyle can affect your low back pain. For example, you may want to know if smoking, being overweight, or not exercising can impact your low back pain. These are three important lifestyle choices that can influence how severe your low back pain might be, and how long it can last.

There is convincing evidence from studies that being physically active can lessen the severity of your low back pain. There are many different ways to be physically active. You don’t have to do any vigorous exercise to reap the benefits. When it comes to low back pain, practically any type of physical activity is good. It’s important to find a physical activity that you like doing so you can stick with it. For example, you might enjoy taking your dog for a walk or going for a bike ride with your children. Swimming is another good way to do physical activity without making it too strenuous. Gardening and dancing are other ways to put physical activity into your regular routine. Regular physical exercise can help your low back pain and may prevent it from coming back again. For more information on exercise programs specifically for low back pain, please take a look at these articles on our website.

There is evidence from studies that smoking might increase or even cause low back pain. Smokers tend to cough a lot, and intense coughing can affect the spine. Repeated coughing can increase the pressure on the spinal discs and could worsen an injury to a disc. Smoking also decreases blood flow to the spine. This can prevent nutrients from getting to injured tissues. This can make it difficult to heal after an injury. Smoking is also bad for the spine because it can decrease the density of your bones. In older people, having low bone density can lead to spinal fractures. If you quit smoking, you might be able to help your low back pain. Quitting smoking might also prevent your low back pain from happening again or getting worse in the future. If you are currently a smoker and have low back pain, talk to your doctor about putting together a plan to quit smoking.

Some people think that losing weight can also help your low back pain. Spinal discs act as shock absorbers in your spine. When the weight in your upper body increases, this puts more pressure on the lower spinal discs. These are often the discs involved with low back pain. This pressure might make the discs wear out faster and lead to disc injuries. Carrying extra weight around can also increase the load on other tissues in your spine. Having to lift more weight every time you move can damage or wear out the muscles that support your spine. If you are currently overweight and have low back pain, talk to your doctor about putting together a plan to lose weight.

 
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