The Tale of the “But I Didn’t Do Anything!” Injury
You reached forward for that pen. You sneezed. You bent over to pick up a piece of paper. How in the world does that equate to an injury?!
The human body is resilient, adaptable and amazing. But with repetitive poor movement patterns, chronic inflammation, lack of stability, strength and conditioning, something has to give. Getting hurt is a multifactorial process – it is more than just a single biomechanical act of overloading the tissue that results in an injury.
40-70% of office workers will have low back pain at some point in their careers, and recurrence rates can be as high at 80% within one year.
We also have to take into account our stress bucket. Essentially, our “bucket” gets filled by various physical, mental and emotional stressors. When this bucket gets too full, we are more prone to burnout, fatigue, illness, and physical injuries. It’s important to regularly empty the bucket with exercise, adequate quality sleep, chiropractic care, meditation, meaningful social interactions, hobbies, etc. Everyone has different sized buckets or different stress tolerances.
It is not uncommon for people to get injured when they are going through a stressful time. So although movement frequency or other factors have not changed, the bucket was overflowing thus making this person susceptible to injury. The accumulation of stress (physical, mental, emotional, environmental) matters more than individual stressors.
How do we avoid these types of injuries?
- Empty your stress bucket early and often. Build things into your schedule that destress and recharge you.
- Condition your body to increase your physical resiliency. While walking and other cardiovascular exercise are great, we also need resistance training to make our bodies more resilient to injury. Regualar chiropractic care also builds your resiliency.
- Address the foundational aspects of health: sleep, nutrition, spine and nervous system health, exercise, connection/community, and hydration.
“Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.” – Jim Rohn
