One of the most common pain complaints from patients these days is back pain, and it’s not hard to see why. The modern world is not kind to our backs—back pain Brisbane services are in high demand, and many are struggling to find the right solution.
Traditional Western medicine teaches us to take medication or go under the knife, but such intrusive methods are unnecessary when several alternative back pain Brisbane based remedies are available. For example:
Use Temperature to Soothe Your Pain
We often underestimate the powers of cold packs and hot packs, and how these sudden changes in temperature can ease pains all throughout our bodies. With both cold therapy and heat therapy, you can kick-start the healing process and stimulate your back immediately.
Cold therapy is great because it both reduces inflammation in the back (one of the most common culprits that back pain Brisbane patients suffer with), and it slows down the nerves, inhibiting the jolts of pain they send to the brain.
Heat therapy works just as effectively, by stimulating the blood (which causes it to carry nutrients across the body) and also prevents the nerves from sending pain signals to the brain. These two forms of temperature therapy can be applied in a variety of ways, including a bath, shower, a pad, or a wrap.
Stimulate Your Brain
Pain exists only for as long as your brain lets it exist. The pain that you feel is a result of your body responding to the pain signals sent from the nerves to your brain. This means that if you can distract your brain, or even control it, when pain signals are trying to register, you can effectively lessen or completely erase your pain. While this is perhaps the most difficult method to stop your back pain Brisbane experience, it is also the most introspective.
Sleep
Here’s a fact: over half the victims of chronic back pain suffer some form of sleep disorder, including insomnia. However, researchers have also found that not getting enough sleep can worsen your back pain. This leads to an unending cycle: back pain causes insomnia, and insomnia causes back pain.
It is up to the patient to break the cycle, and the only way to do that is to go to sleep. Treating your insomnia or other sleeping problems may be all that is required to get rid of the niggling chronic lower back pain that has been bothering you for the last year.
Hamstring Stretches
While it may not seem obvious, a major factor in many cases of lower back pain across Brisbane is tight hamstrings. Hamstrings are the muscles on the backside of your thigh, right below your butt, and when these muscles tighten up, they add painful amounts of stress to the sacroiliac and lower back joints.
If you are experiencing lower back pain, consider the possibility of taking care of your hamstrings. Look up guides and tutorials on how to stretch out your hamstrings—a process that should take no longer than a few minutes—and start stretching yours twice a day.
Core Exercises
Hamstrings aren’t the only unexpected muscle that plays a role in your back pain; your core muscles—particularly the abs—are incredibly important in keeping your lower spine supported. Regular workouts and a regular day generally fail to exercise one’s core, which has left many back pain Brisbane victims with non-existent core muscles that can’t take the load off their lower spine.
With just half an hour a day, you can add certain core exercises to your workout routine. And even just thirty minutes of directly stimulating your core muscles is better than nothing.
Trigger Your Body’s Built-In Pain Killers: Endorphins
When experiencing large amounts of consistent pain, it is sometimes better to turn away from the medications and the pills and trigger the release of your body’s own natural pain medication: endorphins. Endorphins are key players in reducing depression, stress, anxiety, and chronic back pain. They work by protecting the brain from the nerves’ pain signals, acting as a barrier to give it time to heal.
But how exactly do you release your endorphins? There are a number of activities that triggers the brain to release these chemicals, including meditation, massage therapy, and aerobic exercise.
The Best Remedy: Happiness
When dealing with pain, it can be easy to forget that what you are feeling is something that exists in your brain and your brain alone. Your level of pain and anguish—even if it is due to a physical source—still depends mostly on your brain’s current health, and how many firing pain signals it can take.
While you may not be able to block out your pain signals, you can create a more positive and fulfilling environment for your brain. And the main way to do this is through happiness. By doing things that make you happy, you naturally reduce the effectiveness of pain signals, until they don’t bother you at all.
At First Choice Chiropractic, our team of leading holistic, family care chiropractors can help catering to a wide range of individuals and their various needs. If you are experiencing strong back or neck pain and are looking to find the underlying cause of your health concerns, then give us a call and book in for an initial consultation to take advantage of our new patient offer.
