Back Pain & Sciatica: 5 Tips to help Manage

Here are five tips to help manage and potentially reduce your back pain.

1. Manage Stress Levels for Back Pain

Negative emotions such as stress can contribute to a cascade of responses within our body which can slow the natural healing response of our body.

2. Engage in Low Level Activity

Light cardiovascular activity, such as walking, has shown to promote a positive response in your body and can benefit your natural healing response. Sometimes we may need to make modifications in how we walk, such as walking at a slower tempo or with shorter steps. If walking is more than just achy, and would be described as painful, please stop immediately.

3. Commit to Your General Wellness

Adequate sleep and a nutritional routine that does not include processed foods can go a long way. When we get enough sleep and provide ourselves with nutritious food, we are doing the basics to promote regeneration and healing.

4. Practice Optimism for Back Pain

Research has shown that our beliefs can be related to long term outcomes when it comes to any injury, not just sciatica/low back pain. Though it may not come natural to everyone, we highly recommend controlling what you can control with how you think about your current situation and your long term success.

5. Seek Conservative Medical Professionals

Physical rehabilitation professionals, such as Physical therapy, will provide you with evidence based care that will make you less likely to need a surgery or opioids to manage your pain. For more information on how Physical Therapy can help, please CLICK HERE.

The Facts with Pain

Studies show that:

  • As many as 80% of adults will experience an episode of low back pain at some point during their life.
  • Low back pain is the leading cause of activity related impairment worldwide each year.
  • Cases of chronic low back pain are increasing

While your lower back pain is certainly individual to you, it is important that you know many other individuals are also experiencing it. In fact, it is the most common diagnosis we see at Rehab 2 Perform each year.