According to the National Institutes of Health, 8 out of 10 people will experience back pain at some point in their lives. After the common cold and the flu, back pain is the number two reason people visit a doctor’s office.
Taking over-the-counter medication may relieve the pain temporarily, but to keep your back healthy for the long haul, regularly incorporate these five natural remedies.
1. Yoga
Some of the most healing back stretches are taken from classic yoga.
According to a 2011 study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, people who took a weekly 75-minute yoga class for 12 weeks reported diminished low-back pain symptoms and less need for pain medicine than those who didn’t.
Three simple back-stretching poses are the modified cobra, child’s pose and the piriformis stretch.
2. Massage
Feeling stressed out is often a cause of back pain, so it’s no surprise that massaging the pain away works.
A third of people who got weekly rubdowns for 10 weeks experienced significant relief from low-back pain, compared with four percent who didn’t go, according to a 2011 study in The Annals of Internal Medicine.
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3. Osteopathic Manual Therapy (OMT)
During OMT, a doctor of osteopathy stretches and uses gentle pressure on muscles and joints.
In a study from the University of North Texas Health Sciences Center, about half of the people reported substantial improvement in their lower-back pain after six sessions of OMT. Nearly two-thirds reported moderate improvement.
4. Acupuncture
Don’t let the needles scare you. This form of Chinese medicine, where tiny needles are inserted into