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Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Back and Spine

Maintaining a Healthy Posture

Tips for Safer Lifting

Tips to Relieve Stress and Tension

Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Back and Spine

Pay Attention to your Body: If something you are doing causes your back to hurt, stop
and rest or stop altogether. Pain is a warning. Listen to your body’s signals, whether you are exercising, sitting, bending, or twisting. Discuss the activity with your health care provider before proceeding.

Wearing your Bio-Back during strenuous activity can help to protect and support your back.

Sit and Sleep Comfortably: Make sure your lower back is supported when you sit. Talk to your health care provider about choosing an appropriate mattress and pillow. You can create abnormal alignment of your spine if a mattress is too soft, a pillow too high, or even by sitting in a slouched posture.

If you frequently wake up with back pain, try wearing the Bio-Back while you sleep. This can help keep your back in a neutral spine posture allowing you to wake up feeling rejuvenated.

Lose Weight: If your weight is causing excessive pressure to your spine, weight loss can
reduce your discomfort.

Lift Properly: Do not lift heavy loads by placing the pressure on your lower back. Use
your legs to lift, and always bend your knees so your arms are at the same level as the
heavy object you plan to lift. This simple technique will save your back unnecessary wear
and tear.

Wearing your Bio-Back while lifting will help support your back while taking the strain off muscles.

Take Steps to Prevent Osteoporosis: Talk with your health care provider about
combating the effects of osteoporosis (bone thinning).

Some steps to prevention:

Get regular exercise: Engaging in weight-bearing exercises, such as weight lifting, dancing, walking, or jogging helps keep bones their healthiest.

Eat a nutritious diet: Your diet should include adequate amounts of calcium and vitamin D. Both are necessary for building and maintaining strong bones.

Don’t smoke: If you do smoke, talk to your doctor about quitting.

Maintaining a Healthy Posture

Posture is your body's alignment and positioning in relation to the downward pull of gravity. Whether we are sitting, standing, or lying down gravity exerts a force on our joints, ligaments and muscles. Good posture involves distributing the force of gravity through our body so no one structure is overstressed.

Neutral spine position

A healthy spine has three natural curves:

The neck, or cervical spine, curves slightly inward
The mid back, or thoracic spine, is curved outward
The low back, or lumbar spine, curves slightly inward

These natural curves are the result of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, which attach
to the vertebrae of the spine. Neutral spine position keeps these muscles, ligaments, and
tendons working together in harmony allowing for the most proper mechanics of the spine to occur.

Learning how to maintain a neutral spine position can help you avoid problems with your spine, and help you move safely during activities like sitting, walking, and lifting. Wearing the Bio-Back automatically helps improve your neutral spine posture.

Pay attention when you sit

Most of us get into trouble while sitting, especially when sitting for prolonged periods of time while using a computer, playing video games or driving. As we focus on the activity at hand we tend to slouch forward causing unnecessary strain on the spinal ligaments, joints, discs, joints and muscles. Over time this leads to fatigue and pain accelerating degeneration throughout the neck, shoulders and back.

Being aware of good posture is the first step to breaking bad postural habits to reduce stress and strain on your spine.

Put safe posture into practice

Sitting: Position your hips and knees at 90 degrees to help keep a neutral sitting posture. Choosing a properly designed chair can also help support your lumbar spine.

Walking: Proper body mechanics are also important while walking. To maintain a neutral spine position while walking, stand up straight, keep your chin up and parallel to
the ground, keep your eyes forward and look about 15-20 feet ahead. Try not to lean
forwards or backwards.

Maintaining proper head position: Being aware of your head and neck position and not allowing it to flex or bend dramatically forward while sitting, standing or walking will help to create a more correct posture, thereby helping to reduce neck or back pain.

Lifting: Lifting can be one of the most dangerous activities for your spine. The neutral spine position MUST be used to reduce the risk of injury. Lifting in a neutral position allows the more powerful leg muscles to do the majority of the lifting. It is also important to tighten your abdominal muscles during the lift. This creates a stabilizing force around your trunk.

The Bio-Back can also help prevent injury by automatically improving your posture while also providing firm support for both your abdomen and lower back.

Tips for Safer Lifting

Many back injuries occur during lifting. To help protect your back and avoid painful injury, follow these safer lifting tips:

Wear your Bio-Back when lifting to support your back.
Make sure you have a safe and clear path.
Get solid footing and a wide base of support by placing your feet approximately shoulder width apart. This lowers your center of gravity and increases your stability.
Keep the load centered and close! Keeping the load you are lifting close to your body and centered can reduce stress on your spine and back muscles. If the load is too far away from your body or dramatically off center, your muscles have to work harder to perform the lift, putting unnecessary stress on your back which can cause injury.
Maintain the neutral spine position.
Remember to lift with the large muscles of your legs.
Most importantly, never twist and bend your lower back at the same time! This can be one the most damaging movements to the spine.

Tips to Relieve Stress and Tension

Life moves fast, doesn’t it? There never seems to be enough hours in the day. Whether you’re at work or at home, it is common to feel stress and tension. The health of your back and neck may be at risk with these mounting pressures, but remembering the “Three R's” can help to ease tension and reduce back and neck pain:

Rest: Take frequent breaks during the work day. Choose alternate activities,
such as deep breathing, walking, or performing quick exercises to get your mind
and body ready for a new job task.

Relaxation: Take a load off. Lie back. Turn down the lights, and listen to your
favorite music. Breath slowly and deeply, allowing your abdomen to rise and fall
rhythmically. Using visual imagery can also aid in relaxation.

Recovery: Repeated and prolonged activities can take their toll if your body does
not get a chance to recover.