Driving and Back pain

You must have suffered back pain notably while driving for longer hours and as you must have noticed, it puts a strain on your spine, lower back, shoulder and neck. Just to inform, you are a not alone person but there are many other people who suffer back pain while driving. People like truck drivers, postal workers, courier workers and people who drive to their workplace and back home.While driving, people experience forces like acceleration, jerks and vibration that trigger back pain easily. The reasons causing back pain are mainly some vehicles have poorly designed car seats and also your feet are occupied in regulating the car’s pedals so, your feet cannot alleviate and aid your lower back.
Measures to prevent back pain while driving:-

• Take regular intervals during long drives. Do stretching exercises.
• Know your driving maximums.
• Adjust your car seat in a comfy position. You can keep a small cushion or a rolled towel at your lower back for added support. You can even us a specially designed cushion for your car seats which perform as a shock absorber.
• Automatic cars put less burden on your lower back equalled to manual cars, whereas in manual cars overuse of clutch leads to back pain.
• Make sure you don’t keep your wallet or cellphone in your back pocket as this may considerably misalign your spine. It may not be visible first but gradually your back pain will get worse while driving.
• Always keep your car in a good condition, especially the tires and the shock absorbers which help prevent jumps and jerks, resulting in a smooth drive.
• You can also use heat packs available in the pharmacy which you can plug in the cigarette socket in your car for continuous heat or use automatic heated seats in your car, if you have, for muscle warm up.
• Even cold packs are available at pharmacies, or you can use an icepack enveloped in a towel, depends on what suits your body.
• Use cruise control if you have in your car, keep cruise control mode on and place your feet on the floor in 90-degree angle firmly on the ground. This will obviously maintain your spine.
• Take good care of your posture.
• While loading and unloading items from the car or vehicle, try caring small items or less weight, closer to your body while you bend your knees and lift the load. This will help lessen your back pain.

Certainly, with some precautions and care along with some basic tricks and ideas which relax you and increase your comfort level to an extent and help you to drive smoothly to your destination was our initiative.

Have a safe and back pain-free journey!