Jodie Walters shares her advice for dealing with back pain when working on physically demanding projects for Back Care Awareness Week, an annual campaign led by the charity BackCare.
Working in the landscape industry involves a lot of sustained and repetitive movements, such as bending, kneeling and lifting. It’s important to keep the body and the back fit and strong so that it can safely deal with those repetitive sustained movements and positions.
You can prevent back pain by having a good baseline level of fitness that complements the demands of the job by doing regular cardiovascular exercise and strengthening exercises.
- If you’re doing lots of heavy and manual tasks, build these up gradually or you risk injuring yourself if you do too much too soon.
- If you’re having to work in similar positions for long periods of time, take regular rests and movement breaks.
- Maintaining general back stretches and exercises each day can help maintain flexibility and strength.
If you do have back pain, take a ‘little and often’ approach, rather than long periods of heavy work.
- Pace yourself and build up physical work gradually, take more regular movement breaks to do stretches and change position.
- Take short term, appropriate pain medication to help you stay active at the advice of your doctor.
- Above all – keep moving. You may have to reduce your workload temporarily and build back up gradually, but keeping moving helps your muscles from getting too tight and causing more pain.
Positive thinking and managing your stress can help improve your sleep and help you relax. This is important when dealing with back pain as the more tension you hold in your body, the more you’ll feel pain. A few ways to manage your mindset include:
Manage the stressors in your life
Ongoing unresolved distress in your life will wind up your body’s fight and flight system, raising tension in your back muscles which is likely to cause more frequent flare-ups. Some of your daily stressors within your home or work life can be difficult to keep on top of but if you can find ways to manage these better, you will find that your back will be much less troublesome.
Focus on a structured plan to help you sleep better
Refreshing sleep is essential for our general health and well-being. Avoiding using technology including computers, mobile phones and television before bed and having a bedtime routine leading up to sleep are simple strategies you can use to make refreshing sleep more likely.
Clear your mind. If you change your thinking, you could change your back pain
Thinking negatively can exacerbate pain. You can try what’s called the 7-11 breathing method to calm your body and bring your focus away from your pain and negative thoughts. Breathe in for a count of seven, and out for 11. Do this for 5-10 minutes and you should find your body start to relax and begin helping clear your mind.
Whilst these tips may not work immediately, persevere with them. You should see gradual improvements overtime, but if your back pain worsens and you’re having problems with numbness or with bladder/bowel function it’s a good idea to talk to a healthcare professional about your symptoms.
Words by Jodie Walters, a specialist musculoskeletal physiotherapist at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital.
Patients can find general information and advice about managing back pain here: Back pain – NHS
You can self-refer to our hospital for NHS physiotherapy treatment, for those in the West Midlands or able to travel to us: Royal Orthopaedic Hospital – Therapy
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