Back It Up
For a Better Retirement
I recently read a
report that 70-85% of Americans suffer from back pain at some point in their
life. Interestingly, back pain is
the most frequent cause of limitation for people under 45. And we spend over 50 billion dollars treating
these pains.*
I recall my teen
years of carrying a backpack with heavy schoolbooks (on one shoulder, of
course!). Before the invention of
cell phones and Bluetooth, I would cradle the phone between my neck and
shoulder for hours at a time. Then, I
graduated and spent another 10 years doing pretty much the same stuff adding
poor posture while staring at a computer screen set too low on my desk.
So, this should come
as no surprise that the right side of my neck and shoulder are tighter after
spending time on my laptop (writing a blog…). One thing we don’t realize is all of these
actions catch up with us. We wake up one
day, and realize our hips don’t open all the way and our bodies ache all over.
Now is the time to
protect your back and entire body. Start
by standing against a wall. Do your
heels, calves, buttocks; upper back and head touch the wall? Do you have a natural curve in your lumbar
(lower) and cervical (upper) neck? Do
your ears sit right above your shoulders?
This is our first priority – working towards a better posture.
Evaluate your
lifestyle. Are you a businessperson
who is carrying a too heavy briefcase?
Perhaps you could purchase a wheeled bag. Are you a mother carrying children on one hip
and throwing your alignment out the window?
Practicing awareness and stretching the opposite side will help pull the
body back together.
In addition to
changing some of your everyday actions, practicing yoga will open and release
the body. With as little as 5-10
minutes each day, you will notice your shoulders falling away from the ears,
and more space between your lower back and sacrum. Add core exercises or Pilates to build
strength and release weight on the lower parts of the body.
Here are a few poses to try at home:
1.
Hip Openers – Warrior 1 and 2, Wide Leg Squats,
Low Lunge, Half Splits
2.
Chest Openers – Cobra, Locust, Fingers Clasped
behind back in Standing Forward Fold
3.
Core Strengthening – From kneeling, bring one
hand to belly and one to lower back, lean back a couple of inches to engage your
core. Then draw yourself up to
kneeling.
*Source: ACA Today
