Imagine being an active individual that has always taken great pride on your ability to tackle virtually any physical challenge that you have ever come across. Perhaps you love to run, swim, or do any number of other types of activities. Many people live their lives in exactly this way.
Still others have jobs that require that they be physically active, often for hours on end with little or no break in between. For all of these individuals, there is something in common. Many of them unknowingly put themselves at risk for chronic back pain, often by participating in the activities that they love to do so much.
Furthermore, these are the individuals who are likely to be most affected by chronic back pain because when it hits, it has the most dramatic impact on their lives. It may no longer be possible to be physically active. As a result, it is important that individuals who love to participate in physical activities or have jobs requiring them to be physically active find all-natural techniques to deal with the chronic back pain that will inevitably occur at some point in their lives.
It seems like we live in a world where people are experiencing pain more and more frequently. To make matters worse, many people are living with chronic pain and that has a detrimental impact on their daily lives. Furthermore, many of them are unsure of how they should handle their pain.
It can be exceptionally difficult for an individual who has always been accustomed to leading an active lifestyle, especially when that same individual can no longer get up and do something as simple as walking across the room to retrieve an object. All of this can be caused by back pain.
In fact, back pain is one of the most common types of chronic pain that is suffered by individuals today. It is also one of the most common reasons that people end up on disability, unable to go to work or even be active participants in their own lives.
The implications associated with suffering from this type of pain are virtually endless. Obviously, it has an impact on your professional life, especially if you are required to do a lot of heavy lifting in your job. It also impacts the way that you live your personal life. It even impacts your ability to spend time with your loved ones. Imagine no longer being able to go to your son's soccer game, your daughter's dance recital, or even play with your dog. Imagine all of the people who count on you throughout your day who would also be adversely impacted by your inability to do the things that you have always done without even thinking about it.
This is what happens when chronic back pain strikes and an effective solution cannot be found.
What is back pain?
The obvious answer to that question is that it is pain that you experience in your back. Most people experience pain in their lower back, but the truth is, it can happen anywhere from the base of your neck all the way down to your tailbone.
Sometimes, the pain is localized to a single area of the back, and at other times, it seems like it radiates throughout every single inch of your entire back. It depends on what type of injury or injuries you have suffered in the past and things that exacerbate that condition. It also depends on any previous treatment that you have tried in the past and how effective or ineffective the treatment ultimately was.
Sometimes, the back pain can be controlled with over the counter medication, at least in the beginning stages. However, virtually every individual who has ever suffered from it will tell you that, eventually, those tactics no longer work. In fact, methods that are more conventional rarely work for any length of time when it comes to controlling back pain.
Why does back pain happen?
In short, it happens because there has been some type of injury that has caused subsequent back pain or it happens because of repetitive movements that eventually cause a great deal of pain. Sometimes it can happen as the direct result of other medical conditions or illnesses.
Many times, people start having back pain after lifting something without using proper lifting techniques. This can cause a lot of stress on the back, especially the lower back. The chances that something can cause chronic pain go up exponentially when these techniques are used over and over again.
Even people who lift properly can find themselves suffering from back pain after years and years of wear and tear doing the same type of lifting. As a result, anyone who has a job that requires a lot of physical effort can eventually suffer from back pain. Of course, it also happens when sleeping on the wrong mattress or having poor posture.
In reality, there are a lot of things that cause back pain. The question then becomes more about deciding how to handle the problem effectively so you can get back to living a normal life. Because back pain is something that affects so many people, there are a lot of treatments available for it. However, many of these treatments are based on traditional medicine, involving conventional methods that should only be used as a last resort.
Some of these methods are quite invasive and there is no guarantee that they will even work after a person puts themselves through everything that is required to receive them. This can cause a person to become quite frustrated as they try one treatment after another, only to find that nothing seems to work.
As one conventional treatment after another fails, people often try more and more aggressive treatments as time goes on. These treatments can be very invasive and it may require months to fully recuperate from them, if total recuperation is even possible.
However, there is another option.
Many people have found relief by finding natural remedies for back pain. Below are 30 different natural remedies that people can use to eliminate much of their back pain. These remedies can be used as a standalone treatment, or they may be used in conjunction with several other natural remedies at one time. It can make all the difference in the world in your life when you discover that you can alleviate your back pain without using conventional methods.
Exercise
The truth is simple. Exercise makes it much easier to avoid back pain in the first place. It also makes it easier to alleviate any chronic back pain that is already occurring. The more you move, the more flexible your body becomes.
In addition, exercise helps to strengthen your core, effectively taking much of the pressure off of your back and distributing it more evenly throughout your entire torso. When you exercise on a regular basis, you have better muscle tone, more flexibility, and better mobility.
When it is all said and done, people who exercise generally feel better than those who lead more sedentary lives. Therefore, if you are experiencing back pain, one of the best favors that you can do for yourself is to start moving right away.
Deep breathing
You might be surprised at this fact, but doing something as simple as deep breathing exercises can help you eliminate a lot of your chronic back pain.
Why does this work?
It really all comes down to eliminating stress. When you are stressed out, you have a natural tendency to tense all of your muscles up, including those muscles in your back. We you engage in deep breathing techniques, it helps you eliminate stress, thereby relaxing these muscles.
If you are experiencing a lot of back pain as a result of being stressed out all the time, this is something that you can do to control the problem.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a very effective treatment for a number of ailments, including chronic back pain. Many people are not firmly convinced that it can actually help a person until they do it themselves, but most become firmly convinced of its effectiveness once they try it out. In addition, it has many of the same benefits as conventional treatments without the potentially dangerous side effects.Acupressure
This is another technique that works very well for anyone who is suffering from debilitating back pain. It feels like a massage but it achieves so much more. When done correctly, it has the power to help back pain sufferers break the chains that have been dragging them down for years. It can also help relax muscles and help people feel better than they have felt in years.Be happy
You might think this is anything but an actual remedy, but you will be surprised at how much better you will feel if you are capable of simply being happy more often than not. People physically feel better when they are more positive, all of which involve being happy.
When you allow the negative emotions to creep in, you can, and often do, start to feel physical pain. If you already have chronic pain, this can just exacerbate the condition and take it to an entirely new level. Being happy, on the other hand, helps you feel your best.
Take a minute for yourself
It is really difficult to stay happy in a world where there are so many demands placed on your time. If you are able to learn to take a minute or two for yourself, it makes it much easier for you to stay in control of your back pain because you are not allowing yourself to be controlled by your emotions.
When you feel overwhelmed or something is troubling you, allow your first response to be to do nothing. Simply take a couple of minutes to sit down, relax as much as you possibly can, and process all of the information. This can help you keep your back muscles loose and it can prevent the chronic pain that you already have from getting any worse.
Meditation
Meditation is a great technique for alleviating chronic pain. There is a theory that says that mental and emotional energy is connected to the physical body, and it appears to be so. When you meditate and you are able to remain in control of your emotions, you have less muscle tension and, therefore, less pain. It can have a dramatic impact on the amount of pain that you feel and it can also help you keep things in perspective.Eat chocolate
Chocolate is able to help you control your pain level by positively influencing chemicals in the brain that register pain. Therefore, eating chocolate can help you manage your back pain more naturally. Of course, there are some guidelines that you should follow. The chocolate should be dark chocolate, not milk chocolate. In addition, you should only eat two or three small bites per day. This will help you gain the most benefit without taking in too many calories.Eat healthier
Of course, if you really want to make some lifestyle changes that will stick when it comes to feeling better in the long term, eating healthier is one of the best things that you can do for any type of chronic pain. It can be considered an actual remedy because it is something that allows you to change the way that you live your life in a positive manner.
It also gives you the opportunity to feel better all the time, not just part of the time. It gets rid of all the toxins in your body, helps you maintain a healthier weight and leads to other positive lifestyle changes.
Swim
Swimming is a fabulous exercise for those who suffer from back pain because it allows you to exercise your body without placing undue stress on the back. The water can partially support the weight of your body while simultaneously giving you a chance to work all of your muscles at one time.
You can also concentrate on the muscles of the back in order to stretch them and help you stay more limber if you so choose. This is an especially good exercise to participate in if you are simply in too much pain to do anything else at the time.
Stretch
Stretching in as an easy tactic that you can use to eliminate back pain. A lot of times, the pain occurs as a direct result of muscles that have simply become tense, often chronically so. Over time, this can cause the muscles to shorten. This pulls everything else out of place and causes a great deal of pain. Therefore, participating in some simple stretching techniques can help you eliminate a lot of the pain that you are feeling. It also helps you guard against future injuries.Yoga
Yoga is one of those things that seems almost impossible if you are in a lot of pain. However, it is important to keep in mind that no one expects you to be able to do the most complicated poses right away. Almost anyone can do yoga. It is important that you start out with things that are just outside of your comfort zone and that you stop if you feel pain.
The more that you do it, the easier it becomes. In turn, it becomes easier for you to get your back in shape again and stop experiencing the pain that has been preventing you from living your life for years.
Listen to music
Even hospitals that have top therapy programs utilize music as a part of their rehabilitation techniques. That is because music has a dramatic and profound impact on your body. It has been proven to lower heart rate and blood pressure and help people concentrate better.
In return, people that listen to music are better able to relax. This is another technique that is effective to help you deal with chronic pain that is associated with stress, as is the case with many back pain sufferers.
Relax
It is easier said than done, but when you learn to relax you learn to control a lot of your chronic pain. It is one of the most effective things that you can do if you are experiencing a lot of pain in any part of your body, especially in your back. It is important that you learn to do whatever you need to do to help you stay relaxed and focused on finding a way to feel better.
The more relaxed you are, the easier it is for you to move and do all of the other things that are included on this list. Muscles that are more relaxed are much more cooperative when you move, reducing the amount of pain that you feel when you try to exercise, stretch or do virtually anything else.
Socialize
Some people start to feel back pain more acutely when they find themselves in a situation where they are no longer active participants in their own lives. Once you begin to socialize, it becomes easier to focus on the things that you are doing with other people as opposed focusing only on your own pain. In other words, it gives you a distraction for your mind.
However, it also provides you with moral support and gives you someone else to bounce ideas off of when you are trying to find an actual solution that really works. A lot of pain is associated with the way the mind works. Learning to socialize can actually help you feel less pain.
Trim your waist
If you have a lot of back pain, one of the worst things that you can do is allow yourself to carry excessive weight. In fact, trimming your waist should be you one of your first steps in coping with back pain because the more weight that you carry around, the more stress and strain that is placed on your back.
Even reducing your weight by five or ten pounds can make a dramatic impact on the way you feel. The efforts that are involved with weight loss are a small price to pay for feeling better, so it is vitally important that you keep your weight in check if you are a chronic back pain suffer.
Stop worrying
This step, like many of the others included on this list, reiterates the fact that when you worry, your physical body is adversely impacted. The truth is, it is impacted in more ways than one. All of your muscles tense up, which is bad enough when you already have back pain. However, it does not end there.
You also have to deal with the flood of stress related hormones that are constantly pumped into your bloodstream. This only makes a situation worse and when you suffer from back pain on a regular basis, you have to deal with the consequences of the stress hormones.
Typically, it means that your pain will become worse over time, gradually getting more severe until it is completely debilitating unless you learn to control your emotions.
Find a better chair
Your back pain could potentially be related to a chair that you are sitting on at work. If you find that your pain is much worse after you spend hour after hour in this chair, it might be time to shop for one that is designed specifically for people that suffer from back pain.
It is important to purchase a chair that is high quality, but it is more important to purchase one that is designed to eliminate the exact type of back problem that you are having. If your problems are caused by sitting in the wrong chair for too long, this could eliminate them altogether.
Stop drinking caffeine
This is one of the most difficult steps that you will probably have to face, especially if you are like most people who really love their caffeine. The reason that it can potentially be a problem is that it interacts with your body in a way that gears everything up for the day ahead.
Caffeine is a stimulant, and as such, it can cause you to become jittery, tense, and overly excited. This, in turn, can have an adverse impact on your muscles, not to mention increasing any stress that you are already feeling.
Sleep better
There have been numerous studies conducted over the years that prove that people who sleep too little or too much have more health problems than those who get the optimum number of hours of sleep per night.
Generally speaking, you should try to get somewhere between seven and eight hours each night. If you are chronically sleep deprived, you will start to experience pain as a result of it. If you already have pain in your back, it will only become worse.
Therefore, learning to get better sleep can provide you with a dramatic improvement when it comes to dealing with pain.
Get a better mattress
You would be surprised at the number of people who suffer from chronic and even debilitating back pain, all because they sleep on a mattress that doesn't support their back. If you are sleeping on a mattress that is of poor quality or you have been sleeping on the same one for the last twenty years, there is a good chance that your mattress could be causing your problems.
Even if you are suffering from back pain due to an injury or some other type of chronic condition, having the right mattress can help you manage the situation. If you are sleeping on something that would cause a relatively healthy person to experience pain, imagine what that does to your body if you already have back pain.
It makes it more important than ever that you find a mattress that is of exceptional quality and that is designed for people who are suffering from back pain. At the very least, a can help you get some decent sleep and successfully manage your back pain as opposed to contributing to the problem.
Take a warm bath
When you are in pain, heat is one of the things that can bring relief faster than almost anything else. In fact, it feels so good that you have to be careful not to burn your skin while you are trying to find relief from muscles that are overly tense deep inside your back.
One of the most effective ways that you can loosen up all of the muscles at one time is to take a bath in water that is very warm. In fact, you should bathe in water that is as warm as you can physically stand without causing injury to yourself. If you do this at the start of your day, it can help you loosen up tense muscles that have shortened up some overnight.
If you feel more pain at the end of a long day, you can use this technique to loosen things up so that you can find enough relief to get a good night's sleep. Either way, it is an especially effective technique, it is all natural and it has no side effects as long as you take care not to burn yourself with scalding hot water.
Use Epsom salts
There is certainly nothing wrong with using this technique in conjunction with taking a warm bath. The reason it works so well is because the salts can effectively pull out many of the toxins that are in your body, thereby reducing the level of pain that you feel.
This is the same technique that people use when they have twisted their ankle or they are trying to deal with inflammation in their foot. Therefore, it allows you to reduce the amount of inflammation in your back, which may be the reason that you are experiencing pain in the first place. This is a technique that you should definitely try if you have back pain.
You might be surprised at the results and how effectively this technique can help you deal with the problem without resorting to more conventional methods.
Herbal remedies
Herbal remedies have come under a lot of fire recently, largely because they are not regulated by the FDA, nor are they always regulated for quality. In addition, it can be relatively easy to get yourself in a situation where you are taking a group of several herbal remedies that adversely interact with each other. However, that does not mean that the power of herbal remedies should be discounted in any way whatsoever.
It requires that you only purchase remedies from companies that make high quality products and ensure quality. It also requires that you speak with your own personal physician about your desire to incorporate herbal remedies into some type of treatment regimen so that you can be made aware of any and all potential drug interactions.
With that being said, there are some potent herbal remedies out there that can help you manage your pain just as effectively as most prescription medications, if not more so.
Apply heat
If you don't have time to take a warm bath, you can apply heat in virtually any setting. If you are at work, you can simply use a heating pad that plugs in close to your desk. On the other hand, you can apply heat even when you are out and about and you are nowhere near an electrical outlet.
This can be achieved through using heat packs and placing them wherever you feel pain. This can keep muscles loosened up and it can also keep pain at bay. If it helps you, you can alternate heat and cold at 20 minute intervals. Some people swear by this technique while others prefer to use heat almost exclusively.
The measuring stick that you should use for this technique is to do what helps you feel better. If if feels better to alternate between the two, then do so. If applying cold makes you want to hit the ceiling, refrain from doing that and use only heat.
Laser therapy
This is a relatively new form of treatment. As such, it has not been widely used but those who have used it almost universally swear by it. The great thing about it is that it does not necessarily require that you visit a physician's office to get it, although that is certainly one option for those who wish to do so.
You can purchase devices that provide you with infrared heat by using lasers. This increases the amount of blood flow to the affected tissue, thereby speeding up the healing process. This technique is especially effective if you are dealing with back pain as a result of some type of injury.
It can help you speed up the healing process and reduce the amount of inflammation that is present in the tissues at the same time. Furthermore, it is completely painless and you can do it in the comfort of your own home.
Change your shoes
Most people associate wearing the wrong shoes with aching feet. You might be surprised to learn that the wrong shoes can have a dramatic impact on the rest of your body. If you are wearing the wrong shoes, it causes your feet to hurt, which thereby throws off your gait. This, in turn, has an adverse impact on the way that you walk, so you begin to feel pain in your legs and in your back.
Before you know it, your entire body feels like it is out of balance and everything hurts. Many people do not think that they can have this type of reaction simply by wearing the wrong shoes. However, people have a tendency to wear shoes that are the wrong size or they wear shoes that simply do not fit well.
If you have any type of medical condition that involves the way that you move, it is even more important that you wear the correct shoes. That is why it is vital that you make sure that your shoes are the proper size and that you do what you need to do to ensure that you are wearing shoes that can help you compensate for these injuries or medical conditions as opposed to making them worse.
Think positive
Unless you have been living under a rock for the last several years, you have probably heard a thing or two about the power of positive thinking. Many people initially chalk this up to nothing more than some new age form of metaphysical gibberish.
The truth is, positive thinking does help you eliminate pain. Even in the cases of the worst back pain, it can help you mitigate the situation enough that you can't start some other therapeutic techniques. In reality, positive or negative thinking has an impact on your physical body.
Perhaps this should be easier for people to believe. After all, Chinese medicine has paid attention to this for centuries and they have based their medical treatment for all kinds of conditions on it. People that learn to tap into this type of thinking can often manage their pain levels much more effectively than those who fail to wrap their mind around what is going on.
If you believe that you can overcome your pain and or you believe that you will forever be debilitated by it, you are right in either case.
Drink more water
If you are having back pain as the result of a problem with your kidneys, drinking more water can eliminate the problem in a matter of days. Sometimes, people end up with back pain that is associated with the kidneys because they are drinking too much soda or they are simply not drinking enough fluids at all.
Drinking more water effectively flushes out the kidneys and eliminates the inflammation that exists within them. It is a simple solution that you can utilize to get real results and it requires that you do nothing more than sip on water throughout your day.
It is definitely worth putting forth the effort when you consider the idea that it could help you alleviate a great deal of the back pain that you have been experiencing.
Strengthen your core
Sometimes, people fail to associate the back pain that they are experiencing with the fact that they have weak abdominal muscles. These core muscles are essentially what supports your entire body.
If the muscles in your abdomen are weak, it will cause the muscles in your back to work harder than normal. Essentially, it is forcing the muscles in your back to take on some of the task of supporting your torso. This can put a great deal of strain on these muscles, not to mention your spine and eventually, your entire skeletal system. This in turn causes a great deal of pain. If the issue is not dealt with properly, the pain can become chronic as the muscles become more and more fatigued.
Strengthening your core muscles can eliminate the pain by redistributing the load throughout your body. In other words, it takes the pressure off of your back muscles and places it on your abdominal muscles, where should have been all along.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are plenty of effective, natural remedies that you can find for back pain. That does not always necessarily mean that there is some magical cure out there. What it does mean is that you can use a combination of techniques that do not involve prescription medications or invasive surgical techniques to help you find the relief that you need.
When you have a lot of pain, you should always start out slow and find the techniques that work for you. One of the worst things that you can do when you have a lot of back pain is to be overzealous in your recovery. This can actually have a detrimental effect on your overall recovery by exacerbating any injuries or medical problems that you already have.
Therefore, it is always best to start out slow and then gradually work your way up to performing certain tasks for longer periods of time or performing more complex tasks, such as in the case with doing more difficult yoga poses. As your back improves gradually, you can challenge yourself to new things in order to help improve your health even more.
Remember that it is always vitally important that you incorporate adequate rest into any recovery routine that you decide to use. Typically, you can use several of these techniques in conjunction with each other in order to find relief. If you are willing to try and you choose to stick with it, you very well might be able to find relief without having to worry about enduring back surgery or being on harsh prescription medications for the rest of your life.
The fact that you can use techniques that are all natural can have dramatic implications for your ability to live your life on your terms. No one wants to be a prisoner to back pain, nor do they want to be a prisoner to conventional medical techniques that may or may not work.
As a result, many people are looking for other answers. These are tips that you can use and incorporate into your daily life without making huge sacrifices in order to do so. Furthermore, they are solid, effective techniques that can help you see results in a short period of time. For that reason alone, you should give them a try.
