What you don’t know about the “harm value” of sitting for a long time: These massage and waist protection methods are actually wrong!

Author: Zhao Ping, Chief Physician of Air Force Specialty Medical Center, Air Force Medical University

Reviewer: Zhao Yu, Chief Physician, Peking Union Medical College Hospital

Many people know the saying "sitting for a long time hurts your waist".

Whether it is office workers working at their desks, students studying at their desks, or retired people playing cards with their friends, sitting for a long time may cause back pain. Some middle-aged and elderly people may even be unable to walk when they just stand up.

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It is very common for people like this to suffer from low back pain due to sitting for a long time. Although standing up and stretching can sometimes relieve the pain, in the long run it will always affect the quality of life and even lead to serious lumbar diseases.

In order to relieve back pain, many people will look for various methods. Some people around them recommend massage chairs, some ask to wear waist belts, and some advocate sleeping on hard beds. Are these methods advisable?

1. Can a massage chair relieve back pain?

We often see various massage chairs in shopping malls. Many people try to buy one and sit on it to massage every night. They feel very comfortable and it seems to really relieve back pain. However, we do not recommend long-term use of this type of massage chair. Why?

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Because the body has the ability to relax itself and relieve tension in the joints and muscles, if you rely on this passive massage device every day, it will lead to the gradual loss of the ability of the spinal joints and lumbar and back muscles to relax themselves, and the muscle and ligament tissue responsible for supporting the spine will lack elasticity, become more tense and stiff, and eventually lead to a decrease in resilience. You may even be unable to react in time to very unintentional movements (such as coughing, sneezing, etc.), which makes traction injuries more likely to occur.

Therefore, no matter how good passive massage is, it is not as good as active exercise. The better way to relieve and deal with muscle and ligament tissue fatigue is to enhance the coordination of one's own joints and prolong the fatigue resistance of the ligaments.

2. Does wearing a waist belt help when you have back pain?

In the acute phase, low back pain is very severe. When the joints move, it will stimulate the surrounding damaged ligaments and muscle tissues. At this time, wearing a waist belt to brake can help reduce stimulation and facilitate the repair of injuries.

Figure 3 Original copyright image, no permission to reprint

However, it is not necessary to wear the waist belt all day long. You can wear it when you are active, but not when you are lying down or sleeping at night. Wearing the waist belt all the time will affect the local blood circulation of the lumbar spine and affect the repair of the injury. Therefore, you don't need to wear the waist belt when you are resting in bed.

When back pain enters the chronic stage, it is often only occasional pain or pain after fatigue, and you don't need to wear a waist belt at this time. In special circumstances, such as needing to sit in a car for a long time, or needing to do some physical activities, and being afraid of getting hurt, or often being accidentally stressed during some activities, then you need to wear a waist belt.

3. Can sleeping on a hard bed relieve back pain?

Patients with back pain are often advised to sleep on a hard bed, which seems to be common sense.

Some patients even sleep on a hard board covered only with a sheet. Many of them find that the more they sleep on the hard bed, the more pain in their waists they experience.

In fact, a hard bed is not the same as a hard board. A hard board has no elasticity, and a normal spine has several physiological curvatures. When lying flat on a hard bed, only the convex points of the spinal curvature are supported and stressed, while the concave points are in a suspended state. This will cause the tension of the paravertebral muscles that are tense and ischemic due to injury stimulation to be unable to relax, and the joint irritation cannot be relieved, and the inflammation will be aggravated.

So, how do you understand the hardness of a hard bed?

There is a simple method, which is to let the patient lie flat on the bed, put his hand under the waist and insert it. If the hand can be inserted, but it is a little difficult, then the hardness is basically appropriate. If the hand cannot be inserted, it means that the bed is too soft. If the hand can be inserted easily, then it means that the bed is too hard.

So, whether patients with frequent back pain should sleep on a hard bed depends on their individual circumstances. For example, people with hunchbacks may feel more comfortable sleeping on a soft bed. If sleeping on a hard bed is uncomfortable, don't force it. Most beds are of acceptable hardness. You don't have to worry too much about sleeping on a hard board or a hard bed.

4. Is it necessary to see a doctor if I have lower back pain?

The incidence of low back pain is very high and increases with age. Almost no one is immune to it when they reach middle age or old age.

So, do all patients with back pain need to see a doctor?

If the back pain only occurs occasionally, does not affect activities, and has a clear cause, such as fatigue, sprain, or injury during sports, and after eliminating these factors, the back pain can be relieved within a week, you do not need to see a doctor.

However, if the lower back pain occurs frequently, or there is no triggering factor, and it cannot be relieved after rest or the relief is incomplete, or even lasts for more than ten days, you must go to the hospital for further examination to see which link has a problem and provide treatment according to the cause.

5. How to prevent low back pain in daily life?

Simply put, there are three main principles.

First, maintain a regular life and work state. Work and life can be very busy, but they should be as regular as possible, in order to establish their own biological clock. The biological clock can promote the establishment and stability of mechanical biorhythms. This stability can ensure the stable and lasting coordination and resilience of the waist and back muscles, and can cope with most of the causes of low back pain.

Second, maintain a regular exercise state. You must design a suitable exercise method according to your ability. All four limbs must be involved in the exercise. The form of exercise does not have to be fixed. The key is regularity, and you can even cultivate this kind of exercise to the point of "addiction".

Third, avoid accidents. Try to avoid accidents in life and work, including accidental injuries, such as twisting the waist when lifting heavy objects; unexpected postures, such as occasionally bending over for a long time to organize things; unexpected changes in the environment, such as suddenly encountering a cold and forgetting to put on more clothes, etc. In short, try to avoid sudden changes in the internal and external environment of the body that destroy its own mechanical balance.

By maintaining these three principles, the spine will be relatively safer and healthier.