One of the best choices for getting your daily exercise is walking. When Michelle Obama promoted a campaign to walk 10,000 steps daily (the equivalent of five miles), many people began to take notice that walking was easy and fun. As a nation, we also began to understand what doctors have been preaching for years – you need to get up and move, especially if you have a job where you spend the majority of your day sitting.
You can combat a sedentary lifestyle in several ways. Carry those loafers or pretty pumps in a tote bag and lace up your walking shoes before you leave the house. Park as far away as possible and take the stairs if you are able to do so. Once at the workplace, get up out of the chair to stretch several times a day or take a stroll down the hall. If you are not one to hit the gym at the end of the work day, why not erase those dinner calories by grabbing your partner, or your pooch, or both, and walking in the neighborhood?
Office furniture was staid and boring for decades. Except for the big boss in the corner office, everyone else had a metal desk and a small upholstered chair that rolled on four casters on a plastic mat.
Way back in the 10th century, during the Tang Dynasty, a rather barbaric practice of Chinese foot binding of young girls, aged six years or younger, began. The feet of these poor children were wrapped in tight bandages and broken so they couldn’t grow any bigger. Why would such an atrocity be done you may ask? Well, binding the feet to make them appear tiny and delicate was practiced by wealthy families, as only wealthy families could afford to have the women of the house stay at home and not work. When you saw a Chinese woman with very tiny feet, you instantly recognized that as a status symbol representing prestige, beauty and wealth.
Unless you live in a warm-weather state where you can enjoy (or merely tolerate) doing yard work all year around, once the last of the snow has disappeared, it is time to start thinking about yard work once again. Even if you’ve been shoveling snow all Winter, you’re likely to use different muscles, plus you will be squatting and bending, as opposed to lifting and throwing the snow. If you have a snow blower, or your spouse or a service takes care of the snow, you might be out of shape somewhat, so, before you plan on doing yard work, you might want to begin by doing stretches, squats and lunges a few weeks before you tackle the raking/thatching and bagging up of debris, or tending to the yard in general. It really will help to be more flexible for the job at hand, and, you sure don’t want to overdo your unused muscles just because you insist on doing all the work in one weekend. That’s the way to likely incur pain in the back, or aching shoulders.
There are several causes of sciatica, which is identified as a painful condition which occurs from soreness or pain that travels from your lumbar or lower spine, to your buttock and all the way down your leg. Sciatica only affects one side of your body, but that one side might as well be both sides for all the pain you will experience. Sciatic pain does not discriminate where it chooses to wreak havoc – it might be a tolerable ache, or an excruciating pain. There are ways to try to thwart sciatica and stop it in its tracks, but many times, other medical issues are the underlying cause of the sciatic problems, thus, the malady is not strictly your own doing. For example, although sciatica is believed to originate from prolonged sitting, even the simple act of coughing or sneezing can cause a sciatica sufferer great discomfort. Sometimes (but rarely), the sciatic nerve can be compressed by a tumor, or damaged by a disease such as diabetes, or, it could become pinched, usually by a herniated disc in your spine, or by an overgrowth of bone (bone spur) on your vertebrae.
The facts are plain and simple – it is not always possible to prevent sciatica, and sadly, the condition may reoccur after the initial bout with it. What you may initially just pass off as sleeping the wrong way, or feeling uncomfortable after taking a long car trip, resulting in not knowing which way to sit due to the pain, may be sciatica. It most cases, sciatica can be relieved in a matter of weeks. But first, you need to pinpoint whether it is sciatica and what the heck is going on, then do consult with a spine specialist pronto, so that you can get on the road to recovery soon.