Have you thought about looking after your spine today? Unless you have had recent back pain most of us never think about our the 33 individual bones that work together allowing us to be upright, move our torso and protect the spinal cord that runs the body.

October 16th is World Spine Day, the day to add voice to the global campaign for spinal health awareness.

What is Spinal Health?

Spinal health is about making lifestyle choices that support your spines optimal function. This is vitally important as poor spinal health can lead to joint pains and it can also increase your chances of arthritis, poor posture, lower energy, injuries and headaches.

Five Action Steps to take to Improve Spinal Health

1. Move Lots Everyday. 10,000 steps is a great daily goal.

A great online resource provided by the NZCA is Straighten Up New Zealand. This provides you with a three minute set of simple exercises to do every day in order to improve posture, stabilise core muscle groups, enhance health and prevent spinal disability.

2. Keep Hydrated. Between each bone is a disc which is about 80% water.

Getting around 2 litres of filtered water a day can aid in hydrating the discs and increasing spinal mobility. It keeps your discs looking more like grapes rather than raisins!

3. Have good posture whilst sleeping.

Ideally we spend about a third of our life sleeping and it is where we do the majority of our healing and rejuvenation. Therefore it’s essential to ensure we get our sleeping posture correct. When sleeping we need to aim to keep our spine balanced

Have a mattress that does not sag, choose a pillow that is the right width for your shoulders. Check out our video on sleeping posture and our pillow guide.

4. Get your workstation desk set up correctly for optimal spinal posture

The brain and body work best when the spine is in ideal alignment. When we spend extended periods of time sitting in poor alignment, we can develop aches and pains in our body.

Ideal alignment is when:

• • You are sitting balanced on your bottom, and when looking from the side you have a curve in your low back (no slouching).
  • Your shoulders and neck are balanced when looking from the front, and your ear is in line with your shoulder when looking from the side.

Check out our video on getting your home desk set-up right for you.

5. Get your spine & posture assessed by a Chiropractor

To celebrate World Spine Day each year during October, Chiropractic Balance offers complimentary 15 minute spine & posture assessments. These can be arranged at our Wellington or Mana office, or we can come to your workplace.

You may be able to replace your hip or your teeth, but you only get one spine. Learn how to look after it today and enjoy better health tomorrow.