Spine Health Tips You Should Be Practicing
Having a healthy spine is crucial to your overall health and wellness. Many of the body’s vital functions are facilitated by the spine, making it central to everything we do. It gives us the ability to walk upright, supports our core, and communicates information with different systems throughout the body.
Unfortunately, maintaining a healthy spine isn’t always at the forefront of our thoughts when we think about taking care of our bodies. Slouching, lifting improperly, twisting, and other bad habits that you may be doing without being aware of them could lead to short-term and long-term problems. To help combat this, today we’re sharing spine health tips you should be practicing!
Useful Spine Health Tips
The spine has 33 bones, 3 major curvatures, and connects to hundreds of muscles, tissues, joints, and tendons. How much more central to your body’s function can you get, right? Taking care of your spine may help you avoid or minimize back pain experienced by upwards of 80% of adults at some point in their lives.
The good news is that maintaining a healthy spine isn’t super complicated. In fact, there are a number of simple spine health tips you can implement into your daily routine like:
- Lifting things properly
- Practicing good posture
- Getting a massage
- Drinking enough water
- Using heat therapy
- Spine health exercises
- Meditating to center yourself
Spine Health Tips #1: Lifting Objects Properly
The first entry on our list of spine health tips you should be practicing is to lift items properly. You probably lift heavy objects more frequently than you think. Objects don’t even have to feel that heavy to have an impact on your spine. Lifting heavy items improperly compromises muscles in the lower back, potentially leading to negative health conditions like muscle strain or herniated discs.
Proper lifting techniques to maintain a healthy spine goes beyond simply “bending your knees.” Make sure that your hips lead your movements, not your back. Simple spine health exercises will keep your core muscles strong and ready to engage to help when lifting heavy items, as well. You should rely on these abdominal muscles to help lift things without straining your back unnecessarily.
Spine Health Tips #2: Practice Good Posture
Next up on our journey to explore spine health tips is practicing good posture. Posture affects the overall body more than most people recognize. Good posture keeps you balanced, can help prevent negative health conditions like back pain, and even have an affect on your mood. Further showing the importance of good posture to maintain a healthy spine are studies that have shown the direct effect of posture on respiratory function.
Good posture decreases abnormal wear and tear to muscles and joints. It may help you avoid or alleviate chronic back pain problems and is a simple lifestyle adjustment for treating sciatica symptoms.
Spine Health Tips #3: Getting a Massage
Did you think that getting a massage was just for vanity? No way! Self-care activities like getting a massage or using a zero gravity chair with massage features is one of our favorite spine health tips. Massage has been shown to help relax the body, keeping muscles loose and stimulating blood circulation. Better blood flow throughout the body is crucial to maintain a healthy spine as the blood delivers nutrients and oxygen to help repair and refresh your body’s muscles, tissues, and organs.
Finding ways to combine spine health tips like getting a massage and stimulating blood flow is ideal. For example, replacing a traditional recliner with a luxury zero gravity recliner in your home gives you access to a chair that will look after your body while you relax. Massage and other bonus features of zero gravity luxury recliners work together to keep your spine healthy and repair any damage you may have experienced.
Spine Health Tips #4: Drinking Enough Water
Next up on our list of spine health tips you should be practicing is drinking enough water. Beyond simply doing this to maintain a healthy spine, you should be drinking plenty of water each day to ensure optimal performance of all your body systems!
Studies have recognized the critical nature of water intake to our overall health. Not only is it one of the most important spine health tips we can share with you, it’s also effective for helping with how the body heals itself against inflammation, recovering from sports injuries, fighting arthritis flare ups (and other age-related diseases), alleviating back pain, and more. Water makes up a huge percentage of our bodies, so replenishing that water is vital to our overall health and wellness.
Spine Health Tips #5: Benefits of Heat Therapy
Similar to using massage to keep muscles loose, the benefits of heat therapy make our list of spine health tips as they soothe muscle pain and aid in repair. Applying heat to your muscles helps promote blood flow, delivering those essential nutrients your spine needs more efficiently. Heat therapy may also be effective for treating swollen joints and other negative physical ailments like painful muscle spasms.
While your previous go-to for heat therapy may have been a simple heating pad, there are more effective ways to experience the benefits of heat therapy application on a larger scale for your body. For example, a zero gravity chair with heat therapy features may enhance your recovery experience, allowing you to de-stress as your body heals from the daily wear and tear. Combining zero gravity heat therapy chair features with massage and the zero gravity position is like practicing three spine health tips in one!
Spine Health Tips #6: Spine Health Exercises
Spine health exercises are another easy method for maintaining a healthy spine. Targeted core-strengthening exercises will help you focus on spinal care as part of your daily fitness routine. These core exercises increase blood flow and strengthen your spine, helping potentially prevent injury or help you heal faster from one. Spine health exercises also stimulate blood circulation to rehydrate and heal your spine more efficiently.
Think you need a fancy home gym or expensive gym membership for effective spine health exercises? No way! You can do them on the floor, in your yard, or even as part of full body workout exercises using your zero gravity chair you’ve picked up for recovery. Some of our favorites include single leg lifts, Russian twists, and planking. These are not only great exercises for lower back pain relief but also work to help prevent injuries in the future.
Tip: No matter how easy spine health exercises may be, don’t forget the importance of a post workout recovery routine to ensure your body heals itself properly!
Spine Health Tips #7: Meditating
It may sound strange at first, but meditating makes our list of spine health tips and can be very beneficial. There have been countless studies over the years demonstrating the potential for meditation to be effective at alleviating chronic back pain. Whether you practice mindfulness-based meditation, do a series of calming breathing exercises, or participate in meditative exercises like yoga or tai chi, the most important thing is to do so consistently to see results.
Bonus: Adding another option to combine spine health tips, zero gravity meditation offers you the opportunity to join meditation with massage and heat therapy recovery.
As you’ve learned, there are a number of spine health tips you should be practicing in your daily routine. The best part is they’re not time-consuming and can be done pretty much anywhere you are! From practicing good posture to choosing a zero gravity chair to combine elements of massage, heat therapy, and meditation, find what works best for your lifestyle and experience the difference it makes. Your spine will thank you!
The potential health benefits of zero gravity chairs extend beyond spine health tips and can enhance any lifestyle. To learn more, check out these additional resources:
