6 Ways To Look After Your Back

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Good posture is important for good back health, but it’s not the whole story; it’s the prologue at most!

  • Today’s main feature looks at 6 ways to look after one’s back, keeping it strong, supple, well-balanced, relaxed, and pain-free.

• Do you enjoy cooking in principle, but in practice find the shopping and preparatory work a bit much to maintain every day?

  • Today’s sponsor Purple Carrot is offering delicious and nutritious plant-based meals to your door, with a wide range of options to choose from (e.g. high protein, high fiber, lower calorie, gluten-free, etc).

• Today’s featured recipe is for foolproof Thai-style kale chips—that are actually crispy, tasty, and packed with nutrients! Lots of magnesium and calcium, and array of health-giving spices too.

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

Watch and Learn

How To Reduce Cortisol Levels Naturally

Dr. Mindy Pelz explains the what, why, and how:

Prefer text? The above video will take you to a 10almonds page with a text-overview, as well as the video!

Saturday Life Hacks

Back To Back

When people think about looking after their back, often thought does not go much further than sitting with good posture, and perhaps even standing with good posture. And those things are important, but:

1) People’s efforts to have good posture often result in overcorrecting creating an anterior pelvic tilt that causes lower back problems.

Quick tip: if you’re sticking your butt out, you’re doing it wrong (no matter how great your butt is). Instead, to find the correct posture, go up on your tip-toes for a moment, then imagine a plumb-line down the center of your body, thus perpendicular to the floor, going all the way down to the ground. Now, slowly return your heels to the ground, but as you do so, keep your spine aligned to the plumb-line, so you’re not moving backwards as you drop, just directly down. This will land you in perfect posture.

Unless you have scoliosis. In which case, it’ll get you as close to good posture as is likely attainable from any quick tip.

2) There’s a lot more to looking after our back than just good posture!

Here are 5 other important things to do:

Be strong

Do strength-training for your back. How to do that is beyond the scope of today’s feature, but there are many good guides and also personal trainers that can be found.

Start off easy and work up, but do start. The stronger your back is, the less likely a momentary lapse in concentration is to throw out your back because you picked something up with imperfect form.

See also: Resistance Is Useful! (Especially As We Get Older)

Stretch intentionally

Many back injuries occur as a result of stretching and/or twisting awkwardly, so if you ensure your basic mobility and range of motion is good, the less likely it is that unthinkingly twisting around 270° to see where that wasp was going will slip a disk.

The more you stretch intentionally (carefully, please), the more you will be able to stretch unintentionally without injury.

See also: Building & Maintaining Mobility

Stand when you can, walk when you can

We humans have outrun our evolution in a lot of ways, and/but one thing our bodies are definitely not well-adapted for is sitting. Unless we are sitting in a low squat the way you might often see an orang-utan sitting, sitting is not a good way of being for us. Even sitting seiza-style or cross-legged is passable for a short while, not for too long.

So, while there sure are times we need to sit (especially if you’re driving!) minimizing those times is ideal. There are a lot of activities that are traditionally done sitting, where there’s no need for it to be so. For example, your writer here sits for the day’s main meal, but takes any smaller meal standing (and when guests visit for a coffee or such, I’ll offer them the couch while I myself prop up the fireplace). Standing desks are also great if you spend a lot of time at the computer for any reason.

See also: The Doctor Who Wants Us To Exercise Less & Move More

Rest when you need to

You can’t stand all the time! But know this: if you want to rest your legs, lying down is a lot better for your back (and internal organs) than sitting.

Taking a 5 minute break lying on your couch, or bed, or floor, is a perfectly good option and only social convention says otherwise.

If you want a compromise option, though? A recliner chair, in the reclined position, is a better for your back than being scrunched up in the Economy Class Flight position.

PS: About that bed situation…

What Mattress Is Best, By Science?

Kill pain before it kills you

Painkillers aren’t great for the health per se, but pain (or rather, our bodily responses to such) can be worse. Half the time, when it comes to musculoskeletal problems, things get a lot worse a lot more quickly because of how we overcompensate due to the pain. So, take your pain seriously, and remember, the right amount of pain is zero.

If you’re thinking “but pain relief option xyz isn’t good for me”, we strongly recommend checking out:

The 7 Approaches To Pain Management

Take care!

Our Sponsors Make This Publication Possible

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Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

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This Or That?

Vote on Which is Healthier

Yesterday we asked you to choose between apple cider vinegar and balsamic vinegar—they’re both great and it was close, but we picked the apple cider vinegar (click here to read about why), as did 81% of you!

Now for today’s choice:

Click on whichever you think is better for you!

Recipes Worth Sharing

Thai-Style Kale Chips

…that are actually crispy, tasty, and packed with nutrients! Lots of magnesium and calcium, and array of health-giving spices too:

Click below for our full recipe, and learn its secrets:

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Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you a wonderfully restorative weekend,

The 10almonds Team