How to Take Care of Your Aching Back as You Age

With age comes wisdom. Unfortunately, for many people with age, you also start to ache, lose energy, and even find your muscles are shrinking. You can understand why so many people are searching for the magical elixir of life!

Fortunately, aging with aches and pains is not inevitable, you simply need to know how to take care of yourself to reduce and even eliminate the back pain.

Nutrition

They say you are what you eat and in many respects this is true. If you eat a nutritious, healthy diet then your body is going to get the vitamins and minerals it needs to maintain your muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments. Maximizing these will help to ensure that your back and the rest of your body remains strong and healthy as you age.

In practice, this means ditching the processed foods and moving onto whole foods, those that have not been processed by man.

Exercise

Aging is inevitable and with this, you’ll lose some muscle as your body changes. However, exercise can help to ensure muscle loss is minimal. As it is the muscles that support your joints, maintaining muscle and particularly core strength, will help you to be stronger and ache less.

As well as conventional exercises such as running, walking, and some weight training, you should consider stretching exercises and even some yoga.

These slow but controlled movements will really build your core strength which will reduce any aches in your back.

Get Checked

Sometimes an aching back has a deeper meaning. It is a good idea to visit your doctor and even a brain surgeon to ensure there are no other issues within your body.

A quick scan and a few basic tests will confirm that your body is functioning properly. This will give you peace of mind and, although it may not directly change any back pain you already have. However, it will give you the confidence to start exercising and reduce your aches and pain.

It is important to note that pain is subjective. Two 50-year-olds can have a back scan and find the same results, although one is in pain and the other is not. That’s why scans are so important, they’ll show the changes in your spine which is all that really matters to you.

If you do experience clumsiness, reduced balance, weakness, or changes in your bowel and bladder, then you should consult your medical professional sooner rather than later.

Smoking

One thing that seems to contribute to practically all forms of poor health is smoking and consuming too much alcohol.

It’s time to stop smoking and reduce your alcohol consumption. This can help you to heal faster from any issues, and strengthen your spine, reducing the aches and pains you feel on a daily basis.

In fact, smoking affects nearly all medical procedures, you need to stop even if you don’t yet have back pain.

You’re never too young to start looking after your spine; start today!