The reasons behind a nagging backache

Poor posture at the workplace and a sedentary lifestyle — there are many lifestyle habits that might be ruining your back, and you may not even be realising it.

Agnivesh Tikoo, Consultant, Spine Surgeon, Apollo Hospitals, Navi Mumbai and Aditya Khemka, consultant orthopaedics at Hinduja Healthcare Surgical, share what might be behind that back pain.

Smartphone mania: Many people multi-task and talk on the phone while their hands are doing other things. Doing this for a few seconds isn’t going to cause an imbalance in your body, but anything more that that will cause tension on one side of your neck and upper back leading to back pain as well.

When lifting heavy objects, ensure that all of the weight does not fall on your spine alone.

Diet dilemma: Your eating habits and weight gain — especially the ‘bulging tummy’ puts a lot of stress on your lower back. It can cause back pain. Reducing dairy products, increasing smoking, soda, caffeine is definitely harmful for your bone health.

Spending long hours indoors: The fat under our skin gets converted to precursor of vitamin D when exposed to sunlight. Vitamin D is a bone vitamin responsible for strengthening bones, inter-vertebral disc and musculoskeletal well being. Modern day lifestyle lacks outdoor activities and thereby majority of population working indoors is deficient in Vitamin D. This results in weakening of bones, early degeneration of discs and lower back pain.

Smoking effect: People who smoke are more likely to develop chronic low back pain.

Bad roads and long travel: The human body experiences sudden deceleration and random movements which get concentrated at the spine when a vehicle bumps over a pothole. time.