Advice for Maintaining a Healthy Back

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Dr. Eric Sayer from Sayer Family Chiropractic. I'm here on behalf of Expert Village. In this segment, I'm going to talk about how to avoid strains of the low back. One of the thing is a lot of people will create back problems when they're sleeping. Either their mattress will be too old, so every time they sleep, they're sleeping on their backs so they sleep with their rear ends sunk into their mattress, which they never get full extension. They're always crouched as they sleep. Other times, they'll sleep on their sides, but they'll be cranked too much where they're twisted and they're in that position for such a long period of time where it creates a low back strain. Better ways would be to put a pillow between the knees so you're not twisting your pelvis quite as much. If you're extremely tired and you know you're a person that tosses and turns or sleeps in funky positions, try to change that. If you're one of those people that sleeps in weird funky positions, you may trying buying a coffin and sleeping that type of way, or you may just try using large body pillows to kind of put yourself into a position that would be better. Any time you're in a closed position, it's more difficult. You want joints to be opened. Same within the low back. If you're a person that sleeps really tight into a fetal position, you want to relax that. That may mean hugging a larger pillow. There's also pillows that have a cut out for the head, and you can sleep with the head in there. That might keep you from tossing and turning as much, or turn on your side. They also have support that way so you're not kinked one way or the other. The most important thing is to sleep, but if you can modify it to a way that works better it would be best."