Lower back pain can make simple movements painful. If you are experiencing lower back pain you need to read this article.

I’ve struggled with lower back pain over the last 10 years. I was in two consecutive accidents about 10 years ago. I have a herniated disc in my lower back, and I struggled with chronic pain. I had sciatica, had a lot of issues with flare ups, and all around just having lower back pain.

These are tips that I’ve gathered over the last few years so that you can start feeling better, and get on the road to healing, and get that relief that you’re looking for.

#1. Make sure that you have proper posture. Most people just unconsciously have posture where we’re putting our shoulders way forward. This would be called flexion. We’re in this over-flexion state most of the day, especially if we’re sitting a lot. If we’re on our cell phones, emailing and texting, we’re in over flexion. If we’re on our laptops, we’re looking at a screen we’re putting the shoulders forward, or even when we’re driving our car.

We have to learn how to go into extension and bring the shoulders back. We need to be able to look at the body like cylinders. What I mean by that is we have to stack those cylinders and make sure we’re in a good posture. If we’re not doing that, and we’re in over flexion we start doing is dumping into the lower back. This puts a lot of pressure on our psoas muscles, which is in our hip joints. Those are going shorten, and that’s going put us in this posture that puts us in a stress mode.

We have to learn how to put our shoulders back. I also recommend to imagine you have a string going up the middle of your foot up your whole body, your spine, and coming out of the top of your head. This is going to lift you so that you’re not dumping into the lower back.

As we age, and gravity, we have this tendency to have this posture where we’ll just completely sit into the lower back. This compresses the vertebrae, and we want to lengthen. That is definitely one of my main tips that you have to look at is proper posture.

#2. Strengthen around the hip area. We want to do hip strengthening exercises, which you can get from your PT, and it’s something that I have experience with.

I had a lot of issues with stabilization within my hips, especially after my accidents. I partially tore my MCL and ACL. To deal with that, and my knee, I had this weird posture where I was dumping into my right side. This put a lot of instability in my hip area.

There’s some basic exercises to strengthen below the belly button and then our lower back. We need to do this. We need to look at it as almost a sandwich, and this needs to stabilize, and this will help with our lower back pain. Also to have that stabilization all day long.

#3. Stretching. When we have lower back pain we have very tight hamstrings. There’s three muscles in the hamstrings. We have the semitendinosus, semimembranosus, and biceps femoris. They insert in the hip joint at the ischium. When we have tight hamstrings they shorten and this puts a lot of stress on the lower back.

We have to learn how to lengthen the hamstrings and do stretching to make sure that happens. Also stretching all over the body, especially if we have a lot of tension and stress, and we’re not that flexible. We need to really learn some stretches to open up the body.

#4. Anti-inflammatory diet. For me, being in this area for a long time and looking at how pain is connected to inflammation. People get confused because they say, “Oh, the nervous system. It’s the nerves, it’s not connected to inflammation.” It actually is.

The eleven systems in the body are all connected. When you have pain your body goes into stress, and stress creates inflammation, and the signals, and things like your vagus nerve.

You have 12 cranial nerves, and your vagus nerve gets really constricted. That puts lot of stress on all the main organs, and our heart, and a lot of other things. We have to look at what are the things we have control over so we can work with the body versus against it. So we can be in that forward momentum to healing.

What is an anti-inflammatory diet? The things you need to look at is, do you have any food sensitivities? You might have to get rid of gluten, dairy, nuts, soy, eggs, things like that if you have sensitivities to them. These foods might be creating inflammation.

We have to look at good fats too. If you grew up in the 70s, 80s, or 90s we were told fat was bad for us and fat is going make us fat. That is definitely wrong, It’s really important to get the right fats, because if we eat the wrong fats there’s going to be inflammation and issues in the body. If we each too much fat, even if it’s good for us, it’s not good either.

I focus on omega-3. Especially getting an omega-3, 6, 9 supplement on board that has high EPA and DHA. That’s going to help with inflammation.

Getting good fats into your diet like avocado and olive oil.  These fats that are going to lubricate the body and help with that inflammation.

Also looking at green juice. Green juice is one of my favorite things, the vegetable juice, things like kale, parsley, spinach, cucumber, and celery. This is going to help with washing the excess acids away. If you’re stressed and have a lot of pain, and that will help with the inflammation, and the issues you’re having. 

#5. Soaking in Epsom salt and sea salts in a warm bath. Epsom salt is magnesium. You are also getting all your trace minerals from the sea salt within this bath. Being able to relax your lower back in the bath will do wonders. 

#6. Using ice and heat. If you’re in a chronic low-grade inflammation and pain, I would use heat. If you’re in acute pain I would stick to ice. Ice is something that helps in acute issues.

I always remember what I learned when I was studying sports medicine which was RICE. RICE means rest, ice, compression, and elevation. Those are the go-to’s immediately, or if you’re having a flare up.

#7. Magnesium. I’m sure you’ve heard about magnesium, and I had issues for months taking magnesium. I had no relief until I went to liquid magnesium. I also upped my green juice. I was talking to you about the vegetable juice, especially dark leafy greens have a lot of magnesium in them. Then there’s calcium and all these other minerals that help really absorb and assimilate the magnesium so you get the benefits.

#8. Find activities that make you happy. When we’re in pain, especially lower back pain, we’re negative and we’re just in a bad mood. We have to start changing that and looking at, what are the things that make us happy to get that relief and to be able to focus our attention.

#9. Mindset. Which is one of the most important things that I teach and work on with anyone in the beginning of any issue you’re having with your body. We have to see how we are mentally looking at this. What are our strategies, and emotionally how are we dealing with this. What our these strategies so that we can start moving forward and not just being like stuck in the spin of having issue, after issue, after issue. This is really, really important.

If you have lower back pain, what is your go to strategy to help relieve the pain? I would love to hear in the comments below!