Your back’s feeling good at last. It’s been hurting and now, with time and the right treatment, it’s feeling better. You plunge into your life as if nothing had happened – and in a few weeks, you’re back where you started. What went wrong? You may have slipped back into the habits which caused the…
When you’re suffering from back pain, going for a walk might be the last thing you want to do. You might feel you can hardly stand upright, let alone stride out. However, there is plenty of evidence to show that walking will help you both mentally and physically by keeping you flexible, strengthening your muscles…
Back exercises are best done first thing in the morning. After being in bed all night your back can often be stiff and the exercises will help loosen you up as well as waking up the support muscles of the spine. And we have a simple back exercise routine that takes less than five minutes…
Sometimes you’re just doing a simple, everyday movement – and zap! Your back goes into spasm. The pain is suddenly excruciating, you’re frightened to move and have no idea what’s happening to you. This kind of situation feels like an emergency because the signals your brain is receiving are alerting you to potentially serious tissue…
Have you noticed how low mood and low back pain seem to go together? Research into how exactly the two are linked has been going on for years. Studies have looked at whether depression itself increases the risk of low back pain or if low back pain increases the risk of depression. Now breakthrough new…
After an injury or an illness, the body needs to get itself back into ideal balance, called homeostasis, as quickly as possible. Your immune system sends out white blood cells and other immune cells to the injured area to mop up infections. Swelling occurs to contain any toxins. If you’ve cut your knee for example,…
It’s been nippy lately. Have you noticed that your aches and pains feel worse? It’s not your imagination. Cold weather causes muscles and ligaments to tighten up, stressing the nerves, while changes in barometric pressure can cause swelling and make the pain feel worse. Cold weather also affects blood circulation. As your body heat drops,…
Are you planning to set yourself some health goals for 2023? There’s an ominous statistic suggesting that only 12% of people who make resolutions successfully achieve their aims. We wondered why, so we did some research to find out what actually helps people to stick to their plans. We want you to feel healthier, happier…
Did you know your biological age isn’t the same as your chronological age? We all age at a different rate. Although you might have the same birth date as a friend, they may well be biologically ‘older’ or ‘younger’ than you. This is because our daily habits really do stack up over the years to…
Easing pain using your brain is easier than you think. Here’s how… Nerves are really efficient at delivering pain messages to the brain and telling us what we need to pay attention to. But can we turn off the nerves once we’ve listened to the message? No, not entirely, but we can turn down the…
