Dos and don'ts of spinal health

Did you know?

We are on average 1.5 to 2 cm shorter at the end of the day. This is primarily due to fluid loss in the discs of the spine. Astronauts, who were weightless for 3 months, had a measured increased height of 5 cm.

How does that affect me?

The spinal discs are thicker when you wake up, when you sleep you lie horizontal which takes the force of gravity off your discs. Because discs are hydrophilic (water attracting) they soak up water like a sponge while you sleep. Then when you stay vertical all day gravity squeezes the water out of the discs (again like a sponge).

The biomechanics of the spine changes throughout the day. This is part of the reason why we are stiff when we wake up.

After 30 minutes you will have lost approximately 50% of the height gained overnight, and after one hour you have lost about 90%.

Avoid Lifting in the first hour after waking

Because the discs are thicker in the morning, the pressure inside the disc increases; which for those with damaged or unhealthy discs causes greater discomfort.

One hour after getting up the discs have lost 90% of their gained thickness, which is good news for back pain sufferers, as they will begin to feel a little better.

Stand like a soldier

Good spinal posture is not only attained by standing or sitting up straight, but also by maintaining the arch in your low back and neck, called a lordosis.

To find the correct position for your low back while standing, place both hands on your erector spinae (low back muscles 3-4 cm either side of your spine) then lean forward; you should feel these muscle contract. Now lean backward, arching your back until you feel these muscles go slack. Repeat these movements several times until you can pinpoint the exact angle where the muscles go slack. This is the ideal position for your low back.

There is no perfect posture for sitting

We are not designed to maintain a single sitting posture for long periods of time.

You know how when we sit in the same position for too long, and you become uncomfortable. This is your body telling you to change position. Our bodies like to change position every so often in order to change the pressure spots on the body and to give certain muscles a break and load up other muscles.

Ideally you should change sitting position every 10 minutes or so to optimise this function.

An even better idea is to get up out of your chair every 30 minutes and move around (walk, skip, jump, push-ups) in order to unload your spine, lubricate your joints, and get blood flowing to various parts of the body.

Help me, help you

Time and time again patients ask me: “how did I get this way?”

Most musculoskeletal injuries are due to cumulative loading, some people refer to this as Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI).

To figure out how you got this way, you need to be a detective. Keep a diary of you daily activities for a month. Be sure to write down times and how you feel symptom wise throughout the day.

Review your diary at the end of month. Often patterns emerge of activities or times of day that precedes poor symptom ratings. For example, you may notice that on Wednesday mornings your back pain is particularly bad (8/10 pain). Then you notice that Tuesday nights you have a heavy weight training session with your personal trainer. Now this does not mean that you have to stop training with your personal trainer on Tuesday, it just means you should review your exercises and perhaps make some amendments to your training program. If the appropriate changes are made you should notice a decrease in your back pain levels on Wednesday mornings. If not, then you will have to look at other possible causes of your aggravated Wednesday morning back pain.

Treat the cause, not the symptom

If the cause of an injury or dysfunction is not addressed then the results of treatment will be temporary at best.

Many practitioners fail to get patients better because they treat the symptoms, and not the cause.

Any practitioner can treat somebody’s symptom, that’s easy – simply ask the patient to point where it hurts. A good practitioner will try to figure out why it hurts there, and fix the CAUSE of the symptoms, which will provide a lasting affect.

Don’t run on concrete

Concrete is the worst possible surface you can possibly run on. This is because concrete is so dense that when your foot hits the ground virtually no force is absorbed by the concrete.

Then, you ask? Where does the force go? You guessed it, right back into the body. The force that the concrete exerts back into the body (called ground reaction force) is significantly greater than if you ran on a dirt path, where some of the force is absorbed by the ground. So, if whenever you can, run on dirt or grass. This will help prevent injuries, and hopefully prolong your running career by saving your joints. 

Have a good night’s rest

Studies have shown that subjects who had less than 7 hours sleep per night had great levels of cortisol compared to those who slept 7-9 hours. However, those who slept more than 9 hours also had greater cortisol levels.

Exercise can help you sleep

A systematic review done in 2002, examined the effect of physical exercise for sleep problems with the elderly. 

Those who performed Tai Chi for 1 hour, 3x/wk for 24 weeks, or moderated exercise for 30-40mins, 4x/wk for 16 weeks; showed a slight improvement in how long it took them to fall asleep, and a significant improvement in total sleep time. 

Don’t stress, it’s bad for your health

Studied have shown that when we are stressed a hormone released by the adrenal glands called cortisol, increases its levels in the bloodstream.

Cortisol is one of the fight or flight hormones used by the body. It is a great hormone for getting a quick release of energy so we ran run away from a saber-toothed tiger. However, a nasty side affect of cortisol is that it inhibits the immune system.

It does this so well that cortisol-like drugs are given to patients when they receive and organ transplant so the transplanted organ is not rejected.

Thus, when we are chronically stressed our cortisol levels remain high, which in turn depresses our immune system, putting us a greater risk of getting sick.