Back Pain Good Habits to Get #5

How you sleep plays a huge part in the development of back pain. You should be sleeping on our side or back. The biggest contributor to back pain is when you sleep on your stomach. Think about it, the back is not in proper alignment when you are on your stomach - the lower lumbar area is pushed upward instead being allowed to me in it's normal S shape. Also the head is turned putting stress on the musculature of the upper back and neck - the muscles are not in a relaxed position.

Get a body pillow and learn to sleep on your side. You may be amazed at how much this helps!

Back Pain Good Habits to Get #4

Now this one doesn't pertain to guys, but ladies, give up the high heels. Yes they are fashionable, but they can be very hard on the back. You need a good solid flat base of support so that your body is not pitched one direction or the other. This is actually what causes the back muscles to become fatigued and begin to ache.

Back Pain Good Habits to Get #3

Regardless of whether you are sitting or standing for long periods of time, take a break! If you are sitting, get up every hour and move around. You don't have to walk a mile, but at least walk around for 2-3 minutes.

If you are standing in one place, do the same - walk around for a couple of minutes. Changing the position is helpful in terms of keeping the back musculature from becoming over fatigued.

Back Pain Good Habits to Get #2

If you stand most of the day, stand with good posture. Don't stand with all of your weight on one leg. Your weight should be evenly distributed between both legs. Also, if you stand for a long period of time in one place, flex the knees - this will help alleviate the pressure particularly on the lower back.

If you're standing in a pretty still position, think about tightening the calves or curling your toes which activates the muscles in the legs. This will also help alleviate pressure.

If you're working with things that weigh more than a couple of pounds, work with them as close to the body as possible. the further away they are the more torque and pressure that is put on the lower back.

Back Pain Good Habits to Get

Back pain is one of the most common complaints these days. The good news is that there are some habits you can develop to help alleviate your back pain. Over the next few days I'll be going over some of these helpful habits.

First and foremost, if you sit much during the day, be sure that you sit straight up. If you're using a computer, you shouldn't be slouched over to use it. Make sure the key board is the right height when you are sitting straight up. If your chair does not have a built-in lumbar support, the get a lumbar support cushion for your chair. This will help you stay up right and support the lower back which is usually where most back pain is located.

Peanut Butter

I have for many years told my diabetics that they could use a little peanut butter for breakfast to get some protein with their meal. While this is still sound advice, there is more to peanut butter and other nut butters for that matter.

Many people worry about the caloric content. The key word to be aware of here is moderation. I once recommended peanut butter to my brother and he ate half a jar the first time he had some. I had to say, no, no - just 2 tablespoons a day - that is equivalent to one serving.

Nut butters contain lots of good nutrients like unsaturated fats which can help actually lower cholesterol levels. If you're allergic to peanuts, try almond or cashew butter. These not only taste great but have valuable nutrients in them.

Salt Tips #9

If you are eating out, check out the content of sodium in foods online. Most of the chains can be found on line. I know we always pick on McDonald's, but here are some sodium facts about their foods, Big Mac contains 1010 milligrams of sodium. Here's one that may surprise you, McDonald's Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich contains 1690 milligrams of sodium.

Burger King and Wendy's are comparable in their sodium content. So let's look at chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken regular recipe breast contains 1147 milligrams.

What you can see is that when you eat out the sodium mounts up quickly. When I said a few days ago to shoot for 1000 milligrams, I meant for the whole day not just one meal.

Salt Tips #9

One of the ways that you can reduce salt in home cooked meals is to rinse canned beans and vegetables with water. Salt is often used in the preservation of food, so rinsing it will at least remove some of that. Better yet is to cook fresh vegetables rather than canned ones.

Salt Tips #8

Be aware that labels that say less sodium or reduced sodium only mean that there is less than the regular bran by this manufacturer. There is no set amount about how much it should be reduced by. Often times the label is supposed to infer that there is 26% less salt than the regular version of the product. While this can be good, it can still mean that there is way too much salt in the item.

Again. READ those labels!

Salt Tips #7

Here's something to watch for. If you see sodium free on the label, all it means is that there is less than 5 milligrams per serving. So if the serving size is one small thing and you know that you usually eat a couple of dozen of whatever it is, you have gone from 5 milligrams to 120 milligrams in a handful of whatever it is. Bottom line is be aware of the serving size as well as the sodium content.

Salt Tips #6

If you are seeing a label that says low sodium, look to see what the sodium content per serving is. Low sodium means that a single serving should contain no more than 140 milligrams of sodium. If the label says very low sodium, there should be no more than 35 milligrams of sodium in a single serving.

Salt Tips #5

If you are really going to limit salt, look for foods that are labeled as salt-free. However, you still need to look at the label to see what is in the food. Other forms of sodium salts are sodium citrate and sodium bicarbonate.

Salt Tips #4

To add flavor to something like vegetables or pasta, use some salty foods very sparingly. In other words don't drown the food in these. But put a small amount of salty cheese, brined olives, or a splash of soy sauce added to vegetables or pasta can really give it some flavor without overdoing it. Now when I say a splash of soy sauce, I don't mean a cannon ball splash worth!

Be careful about how much you add. A little can go a long way and really enhance the food without giving you a lot of extra sodium.

Salt Tips #3

Use other things to flavor food instead of salt. Each time you sprinkle the salt shaker you're adding about 150 milligrams of sodium. Now think about it. When you shake the salt shaker do you only do it once? Three shakes and you're up to about 450 milligrams!

Use herbs, fruit juice, flavored vinegar or wine. One of my favorite things to do is to put fresh herbs in a small bottle of vinegar. Then use it as flavoring.

Here's another clue - don't add salt to cooking water of potatoes, rice, pasta or cereals.

Salt Tips #2

Start eating in. That does mean to order take out and bring it in. But start cooking at home. Home cooked meals will contain much less salt than restaurant food or processed foods. Cook fresh meats, fish, vegetables. Use fruit as a dessert.

Read those boxes for the amount of salt they contain. Only pick boxed foods that contain less than 600 milligrams of sodium per serving.

Salt Tips #1

The first way to decrease the salt intake in your diet is to eat more whole foods. What I mean here is to shop the perimeter of the grocery store for the fresh foods. Minimize or better yet stop buying the prepackaged foods.

Think about your grocery store - what foods are on the perimeter - fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh meat, fresh fish - these are the things on the perimeter.

Salt

Most Americans who don't read food labels and keep the salt shaker handy consume upwards of 4,000 milligrams of salt a day. So how much salt should we be getting. According to the American Heart Association dietary guidelines, adults should be getting about 2,300n milligrams a day. This is about a teaspoon of salt.

Just because you can't taste the salt doesn't mean that it is not there. Read that package label and see just how much salt is in those packaged foods. You'll be amazed.

Studies indicate that if you can keep you salt intake to about 1,000 milligrams a day, there is less heart disease and less high blood pressure. Obviously eating more fresh fruits and vegetables also helps in decreasing heart disease and keeping the blood pressure lower.

Over the next few days I'll be giving you some tips on lowering salt intake in your diet.

Posture and Back Pain Part #5

Another method used to help you move better and easier is the Feldenkrais Method. This method focuses on you learning to move with greater ease, skill, and awareness. This particular method is about self discovery rather than teaching you a specific way to move.

The person working with you on the Feldenkrais method will look at the larger picture. They will look for patterns which create stress to a particular place. The focus is to improve movement through the whole system. These classes are often taught as Awareness Through Movement or Functional Integration. By clarifying your own self image you will be able to inform your body mentally regarding movement.

Posture and Back Pain Part #4

Often times the cause of back pain is from habits and tensions that individuals carry in their body from day to day. This can include things like hunching over a computer, tensing the neck and jaw when driving, or tensing the back when driving with the position of the foot on the gas.

The Alexander method helps people learn how to use their bodies with more ease and less tension. These exercises are designed to go through the simple movements of sitting, standing, walking or bending and to make these movements simple and easy so that you expend minimal effort and improve the use of your body.

Posture and Back Pain Part #3

An exercise regime that is fairly new to the US but has been used a lot in Asia and Europe is the Franklin Method. This is a science based approach that uses imagery, touch and movement.

This method facilitates ease and comfort in the body and helps to maximize the body's potential for movement. It combines movement with imagery exercises, since the mind's awareness of function can improve the function. A Franklin method practitioner works with you to determine how you move. The using anatomical knowledge, imagery, and direct physical awareness the practitioner will determine the pattern that causes the pain. They will then teach you how to use the mind and the body to move the body in the way in which it was designed.

Posture and Back Pain Part #2

One of the things to know about back pain is that the body will do whatever it has to do to keep you moving. This may result in you not actually moving as you were intended to move which results in pain.

Another form of exercise which is often helpful in back pain is tai chi. This is sometimes described as meditation in motion. The gentle movements work on balance and include deep breathing. These movements help balance the body and free up movement.

You can start by taking a few lessons from a tai chi master and then you can work at home with a DVD once you know the basic movements.

Posture and Back Pain

Since back pain seems to be a common problem in our society, I thought it woul be a good idea to talk about some methods that can help chronic back. The first thing to know about back pain is that it is usually telling you something is out of alignment. This does not necessarily mean that you need to see a chiropractor, but it does mean something is not exactly lined up correctly.

There is a group of exercises that can be designed for you specifically based on posture photos and a comparison with symptoms. These exercises are simple movements that are specifically designed to put you back in line. This method is called the Egoscue Method and was developed by Pete Egoscue who suffered from chronic back pain. This method is utilized by many clinics nationally and internationally.

Yawning and Your Brain

Have you ever been some where and you yawned and someone looked at you like "am I boring you?" Yawns actually are a good thing and if you are a speaker and see someone yawn take it as a compliment. While we often think that yawning is related to boredom, fatigue, or just plain rudeness, it is not. Yawning helps cool down our brains so that they function better.

Our brains function much better when they are cool. Believe it or not multiple studies have been done studying yawns and increases in brain and body temperatures. Many people still believe that yawning happens because of a lack of oxygen. There was a study in 1987 that disproved this.

In fact the yawn provides a means for increasing alertness and arousal, especially if you are changing from one mental state to another, such as going from activity to inactivity, or sleeping to waking. The yawn is a mechanism to recharge so you can better absorb information.

Summer & Tanning

Now that summer is really here and heating up, I need to do my annual word of caution about tans. Some of you may think that you will get a jump on it by using a tanning bed. In a word don't do it.

There is now more evidence that using a tanning bed before age 30 increases the risk of melanoma - a potentially lethal type of cancer - by 75%. In the same study, there was consistent evidence that linked melanoma of the eye. So here's the fact you can go blind and have cancer and a death that is most unpleasant.

Be cautious of UV light which the skin absorbs. This can come from tanning beds, sun lamps and the good old sun. Wear sun screen!

Strategies to Improving Your Fitness Part 5

I often get asked if I use a personal trainer. I have never actually had a personal trainer but I know that for some people this is a very helpful strategy to keep you on track.

Trainers can help motivate you to keep going and do more. The trap that I've seen with trainers is that people become dependent upon the trainer and then when they start to fall off or they don't make the progress they think they should, they blame the trainer. Usually this is a result of not following the trainer's advice when you are not in a training session.

The trainer can help you, but you ultimately have to do it.

Strategies to Improving Your Fitness Part 4

Before you start getting fit, sit down with yourself and ask what was it that stopped me before? Why did you stop exercising previously? What got in the way? Be honest with yourself. This is just between you and your state of fitness. Nobody is going to pull out a gun a shoot you for your answer.

Now that you know what stopped you before, make a game plan for how you're going to avoid that trap again. One of mine was, oh I just don't have the time. So OK, I get up 45 minutes earlier and I do my workout because it is for me to be healthier. The side effect is that I feel better when I do it. Sometimes just being aware of what's stopped you before will help you avoid the trap again.

Strategies to Improving Your Fitness Part 3

I'm going to be a little repetitive here. Focus on becoming fit, not on the number of pounds you want to lose.

It's easy to get wrapped up in the notion of losing 25 pounds by exercising, but in reality what happens is that by focusing on the weight loss, you set yourself up to fail in your own mind when you don't reach that goal by a specified date. Celebrate the little wins - like "I did 45 minutes of exercise today" or "look, I have a muscle I've never had before!" Whatever it is celebrate it with gusto, knowing that you are on your way to getting physically fit!

Strategies to Improving Your Fitness Part 2

If you're exercising to lose weight, don't do your exercises and run right to the scale to see if you have lost anything. Make your expectation about getting fit not losing weight. Then if you must weigh yourself, do it only every 2-3 weeks.

Have a plan in mind so that you don't get overwhelmed in the gym. Don't let others derail your progress. You are progressing at exactly the rate that you should be progressing.

Strategies to Improving Your Fitness

Over the next few days, I'm going to give you some strategies to improve your fitness. You say you haven't been off the couch in several months and now that summer is here you want to get fit and be outside. I say GREAT!! Here's your first strategy: Be Patient with Yourself!

Remember, you have exercised in months, so expect that you can start where you left off the last time you exercised. Don't expect that you will be there tomorrow either. It's a new day, be patient. Give your body time to adapt to the new demands being placed on it. Don't even think about seeing results for 2-3 weeks.

If you start out too hard and fast, you run the risk of injury which will just hamper you further or discourage you altogether. So be patient, take some time to get going.

The clue here to move and get going - you don't have to win the race today. Take some time.

Exercises for Running Part 3

Today's exercise mimics and strengthens the runner's line which includes the backside, core, and upper back. It's called the one leg opposite dumbbell reach. To begin, stand with one leg 4-6 inches in front of the other in a comfortable stance. Hold a dumbbell in the hand on the side of the back leg. Bend your knees slightly and stand tall in your posture. Now put most of your weight on the front leg. Tilt from the hips and drop the weight forward as if reaching out to touch the ground in front of your front toe. Keep the back straight, and breathe out as you reach forward. As you rise return to the tall standing position. After you 10-12 reps, switch legs and the dumbbell to the other hand.

What this will do is help you integrate the normal muscle movements of running with the right leg forward and the left arm and the the left leg forward with the right arm.