Back and Neck Pain! How you can decrease or prevent it!

Holiday has come and has passed. Instead of finding yourself relaxing next to the swimming pool under the sun, you find yourself back at work or school behind a desk or in front of the computer. You might think to yourself “here we go again, here comes the back and neck pain”. The endless cycle begins again.

You might ask yourself: “Why my neck and back pain return every time I return to work?” “Will it ever get beFer?” The answer is yes. Yes, it can get better. The cycle can end.

Before we delve a bit into what you can do to live pain free 365 day a year, and not just 5 days while relaxing at the beach, we need to look at what causes back and pain.

Daily computer users have 2 to 3 Dmes more chances of having longterm neck pain than the general population [1]. The first cause of experiencing neck or back pain is sustained positon for long periods. We often see this with people who are behind a desk for most of their working day, as well as drivers.

Many people start by sittng with a good posture, back straight, shoulders relaxed and head upright, then as we sit for a prolonged time without a break our muscle get fatigued and they start slumping, sitting with the back bent, they shoulder start to elevate and their head start poking forward. This then puts strain on our neck and back muscles and increase pressure on the spine when you then get up at the end of the day your back and neck feels stiff.

The second cause of back and neck pain is stress. When you experience a stressful situation or event, a specific chemical reaction occurs in the body that causes all of your muscles to tense. This is referred to as the “fight or flight response," this is the human body's way of guarding against injury or pain. Stress over a long period of time can results in the muscles being constantly “on guard.” When your muscles are tight and tensed up over a long period it causes knots to form in the muscle causing pain.

What can I do to decrease or prevent pain?

1. Get up and move every hours – this take to body out of the that sustained position.

2. Take a break and do some stretches (See some nice stretches below).

3. Go to a physiotherapist: physiotherapy helps with trigger point and muscle release , stretching, strengthening muscle and posture retraining to assist with pain relief and rehabilitation for prevention for back and neck pain.

Feel free to contact us at info@physio4all.co.za for more information, or to book an appointment with our physiotherapist.

Reference

[1] Alshehre YM, Pakkir Mohamed SH, Nambi G, Almutairi SM, Alharazi AA. Effectiveness of Physical Exercise on Pain, Disability, Job Stress, and Quality of Life in Office Workers with Chronic Non-Specific Neck Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Healthcare. 2023; 11(16):2286. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare11162286