Back Pain Causes, Relief and Natural Treatment. By Dr. Mercola. Back pain is a common health issue today that affects at least eight out of 1. It is a prevalent problem among Americans. In fact, statistics from the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) reveal that at least 3. Americans experience lower back pain at any given time. The ACA report also says that: One- half of all working Americans admit to having back pain symptoms each year. Back pain is one of the most common reasons for missed work. In fact, it is the second most common reason for visits to the doctor’s office (next to upper- respiratory infections). As many as 7. 5 to 8. In most cases, this pain is mechanical in nature – it is NOT caused by a serious medical condition, such as inflammatory arthritis or fracture. Chronic back pain has become such a debilitating problem – and it’s costly, too. According to the ACA, Americans spend at least 8. I cannot stress enough that preventing or treating disease is possible without the intervention of medications. The same is true for back pain. Benefits of High-Fiber Foods *The following fiber content is based on Harvard: Fiber Content of Foods in Common Portions, except where otherwise noted. Fitness isn't just about your weight, however. You need a nourishing, balanced diet to be fit, which comes from eating. You only need to address the root cause of the problem by changing your lifestyle and the way you eat and move. What Are the Common Causes of Back Pain? Accidents and sports injuries are the most common causes of chronic back pain. But sometimes, even simple activities or movements – like bending over to pick up an object from the floor – can trigger pain. There are also a number of other factors that can increase your risk of back pain, such as: Poor posture. Poor physical conditioning facilitated by inactivity. Internal disease, such as kidney stones, infections, blood clots. Obesity - According to a study posted in the Journal of American Epidemiology, overweight and obese people had a higher prevalence of low back pain than non- overweight individuals. Psychological/emotional stress. Osteoporosis or bone loss (as measured by the Z- score and not the young adult- based T- score)A Sedentary Lifestyle and Too Much Sitting Put You at Risk of Back Pain – and Much More. There is one common denominator among most patients who suffer from severe cases of chronic pain: sedentary lifestyle.
A majority of back, neck, and other muscle pains are related to imbalanced distribution of force throughout your body, which is created by working or staying in unnatural positions for extended periods. What’s more, prolonged sitting and poor posture are major risk factors of not only back pain, but also of weight gain, obesity, joint problems, nerve problems like carpal tunnel syndrome, and other debilitating diseases. In fact, mounting research found that prolonged sitting is now an independent risk factor for poor health and premature death—even if you exercise regularly! To learn more about the dangers of too much sitting and the importance of regularly getting out of your chair, I recommend you to see my interview with Dr. Vernikos, who was one of the primary doctors that ensured the health of the astronauts as they went into space, gives a very intensive explanation on how you can simply and easily counteract the ill effects of sitting. The Price You Pay for Poor Emotional Health. There’s increasing evidence that back pain and other types of pain may be exacerbated by psychological or emotional issues. It is my experience that emotional health and your ability to effectively address your stress is an essential component for optimal health, and can have a major influence on whether or not you're effectively eliminating your pain. If you have any underlying emotional issues and unresolved trauma, it can profoundly influence your health, particularly in terms of physical pain. A 2. 00. 4 study on back pain supports this theory. Its researchers followed 1. All of the patients, who were back pain- free at the start of the study, underwent psychological tests. Afterwards, the researchers compared which of the participants remained pain- free and which ones developed back pain. According to the results, the people who scored poorly on the psychological tests were three times more likely to report having experienced back pain by the end of the study. Many health experts from various fields of medicine agree that emotional and psychological trauma has severe effects on a person’s risk of acquiring chronic pain. One example is Dr. John Sarno, a psychiatrist who uses mind- body techniques to treat patients with severe low back pain. He specializes in helping individuals who already had surgery for low back pain but did not get any relief. He uses techniques like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), an acupuncture- like technique that stimulates meridian points throughout your body. Read more about EFT. Sadly, many people dismiss these types of treatment strategies simply because they seem . The Dangers of Drugs for Back Pain Treatment. Conventional health care practitioners are quick to prescribe medications like non- steroidal anti- inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), acetaminophen, and even opioids for chronic pain. But even if these medications can provide immediate back pain relief, their effect is only temporary – the pain will come back sooner or later and in some cases will cause hyperalgesia, or increased sensitivity to pain! What’s more, medications touted to provide back pain relief are saddled with severe side effects. For example, NSAIDs, one of the most commonly prescribed drugs on the market, not only put you at a two- to four- fold higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular problems, but may also cause: Severe gastrointestinal problems, like digestive tract bleeding. Increased blood pressure. Kidney problems. Be mindful that these life- threatening side effects of painkillers are not restricted to prescription NSAIDs like Celebrex, but may also come from over- the- counter drugs like aspirin, Advil, and Motrin. Opioid painkillers like Oxy. Contin, which are also commonly prescribed for back pain relief, also have a highly addictive nature. In fact, opioids are among the most commonly abused prescription drugs today, and are a leading contributor to the increasing rates of fatal prescription drug overdoses. This is why back pain is now one of the primary reasons why so many American adults get addicted to painkillers. The bottom line is that painkillers always come with risks. Unfortunately, if you consult your conventional physician about your chronic back pain, he will often prescribe a long- term treatment plan that may include anti- inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxants and possibly other types of pain medication or even anti- seizure drugs – a poisonous chemical cocktail that will put your health at severe risk! Is Your Physician Prescribing This Expensive But Dangerous Drug for Back Pain? Big Pharma recently began promoting Humira, an expensive drug with a price tag of nearly 2. Humira is touted to help treat ankylosing spondylitis, a chronic inflammatory disease of the axial skeleton, which includes the spine. It is outrageous how drug companies promote this dangerous drug for an exceedingly rare cause of low back pain – one that is only responsible for less than a tenth of a tenth of one percent of low back pain! What’s more, Humira may cause severe side effects, such as: Tuberculosis. Serious infections. Increased risk of lymphoma and other cancers. Hepatitis B infection. Allergic reactions. Liver, nervous system, and blood problems. Heart failure. Immune reactions, such as lupus- like syndrome. Psoriasis. This is just the short list; Humira may have even more damaging effects on your health only to emerge later through post- marketing surveillance in exposed populations who are being forced to act as living guinea pigs. Description Hip replacement surgery is a relatively recent procedure that had to wait for the invention of plastics and other synthetic materials to make. Cut Your Risk of Back Pain Right from the Start! As with any health condition or disease, preventing back pain is better than trying to cure it after it has set in, and may be too late. So even if you’re not experiencing back pain symptoms, I would recommend you follow these simple tips: Always stretch before any strenuous physical activity. In fact, I strongly advise you to engage in a regular stretching program. My favorite is active isolated stretching (AIS), developed by Aaron Mattes. It's completely different from the traditional type of stretching, and is a great way to get flexibility back into your system. Do not slouch when standing or sitting. If you spend most of your time sitting, pay careful attention to consciously sucking in your belly and rotating your pelvis slightly up. At the same time, you should keep your head back, with your ears over your shoulders and your shoulder blades pinched. This posture will keep your spine in proper alignment. Do this every hour you’re sitting, holding the muscles tight for several minutes. Sit in chairs or car seats with good lumbar support. Switch your sitting positions often. I would also recommend periodically walking around or gently stretching your muscles to relieve tension. Avoid bending over without supporting your back. Wear comfortable, low- heeled shoes. Women should also refrain from wearing heels all the time. Sleep on your side to reduce any curve in your spine. You should also sleep on a firm surface. When weight- lifting using your legs, always keep your back straight. Maintain an optimal weight. Quit smoking. Smoking reduces blood flow to your lower spine, causing the spinal discs to degenerate. Get enough vitamin D from sun exposure daily, as vitamin D helps keep your bones, including your spine, strong. Drink plenty of water to enhance the height of your intervertebral disks. Since your body is composed mostly of water, staying hydrated will keep you fluid and reduce stiffness. How to Relieve Back Pain Naturally. If you are already suffering from chronic back pain or pain of any kind, you should understand that there are many safe and effective alternatives to prescription and over- the- counter painkillers, though they may require some patience. Common Sense Boxing Diet. Learn how to eat right to fight harder, gain lean muscle weight, burn fat, or just look sexy! This isn’t just a boxing diet plan, it’s a common sense diet plan for anybody to feel and look like a champ! A NOTE TO THE READERS: I’m hardly an expert on nutrition or dieting. I barely know how to cook! HOWEVER, I did speak to boxing coaches, personal trainers, fighters, doctors, one nutritionist, and even friends that lost weight. If there was anybody that could teach me anything about dieting, I made sure to ask them. Most importantly, I made sure that everything the experts told me did not conflict with anything my trainers told me. The following is a combination of their knowledge and my own personal experience. Boxing Diet for Lifelong Health. Fortunately for me, boxing was my catalyst to seeking healthy food. I was born with fast metabolism and stayed skinny my whole life. It wasn’t until I tried boxing that I saw the difference between looking in- shape and being in- shape. You must eat well to perform well and it was then that I realized the true value of good nutrition. If it wasn’t for boxing, I might have eaten junk food for the rest of my life. Poor Dieting Habits of the Modern Lifestyle. I blame recent technology and modern society for creating busier lives and contributing to poor eating habits. It is more convenient, socially and personally rewarding to eat crap as we maintain busier lifestyles in school, work, or training. Time- crunched days often lead to frequent periods of starvation and over- eating. Diet conveniences come in the form of junk food or restaurants more focused on providing a “dining experience” than actual healthy food. The only thing most people know about healthy dieting is “fat is bad and avoid junk food” and yet the average person today eats more junk food and fat foods than ever before. Proper dieting has become quite the mystery over the years. I’m not sure how it came to be that we humans have lost our ability to eat intelligently, something we were born to do naturally. The way I see it, successful marketing has been repackaging the same facts about proper dieting over and over again to be resold to the poorly- informed (and overly self- conscious) public. I’ve heard of the protein diet, the atkins diet, the vegetarian diet, the high- carb diet, the low- carb diet, and the SLOW- carb diet. I’ve been a successful athlete my entire life without ever following any of those. At worst, these diets restrict your food intake to ridiculously small amounts. These crazy diets work for a little while, until your body suffers from starvation or deficiencies in essential nutrients. At best, these diets are simply a new name for a good old fashion healthy diet! I don’t need to reinvent the science of nutrition. The secret to eating right has more to do with common sense than all the science in the world! Dieting Common Sense: You need to eat everything. Carb, protein, fats — they’re all essential to your body; the key is moderation. You need to eat at the right time. Don’t starve when your body needs energy, and don’t over- eat when you have enough. Timing your meals allow you to stay full on less food. Your diet should fit your needs. Diets are not one- size- fits- all. Everyone’s bodies, lifestyles, diets, and dieting goals are different. A weight loss diet for one person might lead to weight gain for another. Healthy dieting requires: TIMING (of meals)VARIETY (of foods)BALANCE (of nutrients)MODERATION (of portions)The Boxing Diet. As a fighter, eating properly increases your performance, decreases your recovery time, while maintaining a lean (and sexy) body weight. Boxers need more nutrients than the average person to workout, develop and repair the body. A boxer’s diet must: provide energy for physical performanceprovide nutrients for rapid muscle developmentdecrease body fat. The boxing diet varies from a normal diet in that you have to center your diets around your workouts. You need nutrients to fuel the intense workout and begin recovery right after. Eating around the workout is what makes the boxer’s diet so hard. It’s easy to under- eat and end up starving during your workout or over- eat because you feel so hungry after the workout. It’s not enough to say that “an athlete requires more nutrition than the average person.” Managing the boxer’s diet is TRICKY! There’s timing, calculation, and balance involved! The boxer has to eat more, without over- eating! WHEN to Eat. Knowing WHEN to eat,is as important as knowing WHAT to eat. Our #1 problem is figuring out when to eat. Fruits are good, junk foods are bad, etc) If you’re eating healthy but still not losing weight, it’s probably your timing that’s off. If you don’t eat at the right time, it matters very little whether you eat healthy or not–because the food gets transformed into fat anyway! The #1 diet problem. Not eating when the body needs food,and then over- eating when finally eating. If you wait till your stomach is grumbling, your body is already starving (decreased energy and recovery rate). Extreme hunger is usually countered with the next diet mistake, over- eating, which increases fat storage. One mistake usually leads to the other, putting your body in a vicious cycle of starvation (decreased metabolism) followed by periods of over- eating (fat gain). Good diet plan of 6 meals a daysmaller meals keep you energized and full throughout the daysnacks keep you from starving during long workouts and in between mealssmaller meals keep your metabolism high while avoiding over- eating. Eating smaller meals more closely matches your body’s energy use. Your biggest meals are in the mornings and the one before your workout. Smaller meals keep you satisfied without putting extra calories into you. Small Meals a Day. Eating 5 to 6 small meals a day is the best advice I can give and it really works. Boxers looking to make weight follow this religiously. Every friend I’ve had that lost 5. If there is anything you learn from reading this guide, let it be this one: Eat 5 to 6 small meals a day! My friend explained meal- timing in these simple terms: Start eating before you get too hungry. Stop eating before you get too full. Biggest Meal in the Morning. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s the first supply of nutrients for your day and kickstarts your body’s metabolism. Once you have a full breakfast, you can make it through the rest of the day on smaller meals to avoid getting hungry. Don’t be silly and skip breakfast as part of your weight loss plan. This leaves you hungry and sends your body into starvation mode (decreasing metabolism), making it stingy for energy and storing everything you eat as fat. You You need to have energy to start your day; you need to eat good breakfast. Breakfast AFTER Your Morning Run. If you do your runs in the morning, it’s best to eat breakfast after that. First off, running on a full stomach is a terrible idea. Secondly, running on an empty stomach helps you lose weight because your body will be burning off stored fat instead of the food you ate that day. It’s not necessary to do your runs in the morning, but the common belief is that it burns off fat stored from the previous night and energizes you for the day. The Pre- Workout Meal. Aside from breakfast, the workout meal is the second and only other big meal on your training day. It has to fuel your intense workout without going overboard and storing fat. You should eat 2 hours before the workout. The workout meal should be big enough to sustain your whole workout. If you’re doing a 3. If you’re like me and spend 5 hours sweating non- stop in the gym, you need a big meal. Eat light foods so that you’re not training with a half a steak still digesting in your stomach. Eating within 3. 0 minutes of your workout triggers your body’s recovery phase immediately. A boxer needs only 2 big meals a day at most; One for breakfast and another 2 hours before training. NOTE: if your workout comes early in the day, it is possible to have just one big meal. You would use the same big meal as your breakfast and pre- workout meal. Smallest Meals at Night. Later meals in the day should be kept small so that you’re not going to bed starving, but also not sleeping with unused calories. Eating before sleeping is one of the easiest ways to get fat. Your biggest meals (like breakfast and before workout) come earlier so that you have all day to burn off the calories. WHAT to Eat. This is probably the most common subject of dieting. What should I eat? The nutrients you need in large quantities are: water (essential, vital to living)carbs (for energy)protein (muscle growth & recovery)fats (vital to organs, secondary energy source)Then comes nutrients you need in small quantities: vitamins & minerals (boost immune system, support cell growth, organ functions, healthy skin, strong bones)fiber (move food through digestive system, keeps your digestive system running smoothly–helps you eat less)Basically, you need everything. Eating a wide variety of foods is key to proper functioning, growth, repair, and maintenance of your body. Deficiencies, excesses, and imbalances in diet will lead to reduced physical performance, illness, and many other negative impacts on health. Now let’s review the different types of nutrients: Water. Water is the most vital substance in your body; you need water to live. Over 5. 0% of your body weight is made up of water. From an athletic standpoint, you need water to replace fluids lost through sweating. Water: transports oxygen & nutrientsremoves waste & toxinsregulates body temperaturefacilitates digestionendless more important bodily functions. It’s no surprise that you will die sooner from dehydration than from starvation. You must drink water all the time. There is no substitute for water, not even Powerade. I recommend serious boxers to drink 2- 3 gallons of water per day, spread out into 1 cup every hour, starting with one right when you wake up and ending with one right before you go to bed.
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