5 Ways to Relieve Lower Back Pain at Home
Key insights: 60-second read
- Research shows you may be one of 577 million people each year who experience back pain - but the good news is that back pain is something you can treat with simple, natural remedies at home.
- Heat therapy can help your nervous system down-regulate - by loosening stiff, restricted tissue and bringing a heightened nervous system down, you may get immediate relief.
- A tennis ball or lacrosse ball can find restrictions - place it where you feel restricted, not just where it hurts, as the source of pain may be above, below, or on the opposite side.
- Deep breathing is one of the most potent ways to control back pain - pain is not a good representation of tissue damage, but it is a fantastic representation of how threatened your nervous system feels.
- Nutrition, hydration, and sleep all play a role - reducing inflammatory foods, staying hydrated, and optimising sleep can help create an environment where pain can settle.
- The gut smash can stimulate the vagus nerve - this simple exercise before bed can help bring your nervous system down and improve sleep quality.
If you're someone who struggles with lower back pain, you're not alone. In fact, research shows that you may be one of 577 million people each year who experience back pain.
The good news is that back pain is absolutely something you can treat. Whether it be seeing a healthcare professional to find your specific treatment plan, or trying some very natural, simple, home-based things right now that can help you find relief.
In this guide, I want to show you five physiotherapy-approved remedies that you can try to reclaim some control and find pain relief.
On this page
Heat Therapy
Using a hot water bottle or a heat pack can be a great way to prompt your nervous system to down-regulate, allowing any muscular tightness or joint stiffness to release more effectively.
By bringing a potentially heightened nervous system down a few levels and using heat to soothe it, you may be able to have an immediate impact on how intense your pain feels.
We often talk about increased blood flow being one of the main benefits of heat therapy. But for me as a physiotherapist, heat's ability to loosen stiff, restricted, and threatened tissue, as well as bringing a heightened nervous system down, can be a very valuable tool to help create space for your back pain to improve.
How to Use Heat Therapy
- We care about where your pain and symptoms are, but we also want to put the heat pack where you feel restricted and tight, which may not always be the spot that hurts.
- Check the opposite side, as well as above and below the dysfunctional area - they may also be tight.
- Wrap your heat pack or hot water bottle in a towel first to be sensible and avoid burns.
"Heat's ability to loosen stiff, restricted and threatened tissue, as well as bringing a heightened nervous system down, can be a very valuable thing that you can do at home today."
Tennis Ball Release
Similar to using a heat pack, we can also use a tennis ball or a lacrosse ball to go looking for anything that feels tight, stiff, or restricted - not just tender. We want to mobilise any restrictions to feed more slack into those irritated, overloaded, and threatened parts of your spine.
That could be exactly where your tenderness and soreness is, but it may also be on the opposite side, or directly above or below.
Mechanically, we want to think of your back pain as a consequence. It's the last straw - the part of your spine that isn't tolerating how the rest of your spine is either functioning or being loaded day to day.
How to Use the Ball Release
- Place the ball at the base of your thoracic spine or rib cage, just off to one side of the bony bumps in the middle.
- Lie down on the ground, or do this standing up against a wall if lying down is too difficult.
- Let the ball press into that side of the spine. Take note of how stiff, tight, restricted, and tender it feels compared to the same spot on the other side.
- Stay here for 30 seconds to 2 minutes, however long you feel is necessary for it to start to respond.
- Systematically move the ball down a little bit lower to the next level and repeat. If a spot feels sore but not stiff or restricted, you don't necessarily need to poke it - focus on the areas that are restricted.
Key Concept: Your back is not an isolated structure. Each joint, each disc, each section of your spine is not separate from one another. Even your back is not disconnected from your front - it's all one trunk that functions together in a closed system.
Deep Breathing
One of the most overlooked components of back pain is the effect of a heightened nervous system on your pain experience. Interestingly, we can use something as simple as deep breathing to help calm things down.
Clinically, as a physiotherapist, breathwork is one of the most potent ways to help down-regulate the nervous system and settle your pain symptoms quickly.
Interestingly, we used to think that pain was a direct representation of tissue damage - but we now understand that this has missed the mark. Instead, pain is a fantastic representation of how threatened your brain and nervous system feel about something - beyond just damaged tissue.
How to Do the Deep Breathing Exercise
- Sit, stand, or lie down in a comfortable position. We don't want this to be threatening in any way.
- Close your eyes and take a full breath in through your nose.
- Pause at the top for a second.
- Exhale through pursed lips all the way out.
- Pause at the bottom for a second, then breathe fully in again.
- Repeat for 10 slow, controlled, full deep breaths.
- Before you start, give yourself a score out of 10 for how heightened you feel. After the 10 breaths, check in again and see if that number has reduced.
"If you feel you started at about an 8/10 pain, hopefully after just 10 simple breaths you might find that reduces down to a five or a four."
Nutrition and Hydration
The fourth basic remedy is to take a bigger step back and look at your diet, nutrition, and hydration - more specifically, the impact on inflammation in your body. It's worth noting that nutrition is beyond my scope as a Physiotherapist, but it's well-worth looking into with the help of a Nutritionist or Dietician. From a general perspective, we know that the more acidic or inflamed your system is, the more likely you are to create an environment where pain can thrive.
Speak with them to figure out whether you have the nutritional and hydration balance right or wrong for you specifically. Consider wether your diet is rich in anti-inflammatory or pro-inflammatory foods.
Similarly, do you drink enough water when compared to things like alcohol or soft drink?
Sleep Optimisation and the Gut Smash
Much like nutrition and hydration, sleep is a foundational factor to consider when trying to optimise your body's ability to recover quickly. Make your bedroom as dark as possible, keep it cool, and limit the amount of alcohol or caffeine in your system when you go to bed to help support your body's ability to get to sleep - and recover.
Another novel way to optimise your sleep is with the gut smash.
How to Do the Gut Smash
- Take a medium-sized, soft ball and lie down on your stomach.
- Place the ball into your abdominal wall.
- Gently lie down on top of the ball and go looking for anything through the front that feels tight, restricted, and potentially tender.
- When you find a spot, stay there and let it relax. This can help free up the tissue and feed slack back into your back from the front.
- You only need to do this for 5 or 10 minutes, if at all. Doing it before bed can be a great way to bring your nervous system down for better sleep.
The other potential benefit here is the gut smash can stimulate your vagus nerve. This nerve is responsible for down-regulating a heightened nervous system. If you find that deep breaths, a ball, or a heat pack can help soothe that heightened nervous system, then respectfully jamming a ball into your abdominal wall and releasing any tight spots can be another way to indirectly improve how your back feels and functions.
Back pain can be a very debilitating and scary thing to have. But if you can get a heat pack onto your back, use a ball to free things up, practice deep breathing, take a look at your nutrition and hydration, and try to optimise your sleep with something like the gut smash, you can have a genuine impact on pain and function.
I'd ask any patient to look into these options to support our quest to get your symptoms to settle as soon as possible.
Having said this, you may need someone to take a specific look at you and your symptoms to devise the ideal plan going forwards. It should focus on improving how you feel in the short-term, but also attempt to fix the underlying cause of your pain long-term as well.
- Grant
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I use heat or ice for back pain?
This guide focuses on heat therapy, which can help loosen stiff, restricted tissue and bring a heightened nervous system down. Heat is generally preferred for muscular tightness and stiffness. Ice can be useful for acute inflammation, but for most back pain, heat is a good starting point. Always use a towel between the heat pack and your skin.
Why do I put the ball where I feel restricted, not where it hurts?
Mechanically, your back pain is often a consequence of dysfunction elsewhere. The spot that hurts may be the part that isn't tolerating how the rest of your spine is functioning. By addressing the restricted areas above, below, or on the opposite side, you can feed slack back into the irritated area.
How does deep breathing help with back pain?
Pain is a fantastic representation of how threatened your nervous system feels. Deep, slow, controlled breathing prompts a heightened nervous system to down-regulate. When your nervous system is calmer, your pain experience can reduce alongside it.
Can the gut smash really help with back pain?
Yes, indirectly. The gut smash can free up restrictions in the abdominal wall, which feeds slack back into your back from the front. It can also stimulate the vagus nerve, which helps regulate a heightened nervous system. Better sleep and a calmer nervous system both create an environment where back pain can settle.
One key insight from this video
"Pain, especially back pain, is not a good representation of how damaged your tissue is. But it is a fantastic representation of how threatened your brain and nervous system feel about something. Getting control of a heightened nervous system is crucial for unlocking the door that grants permission for that pain to get better quickly."
Need personalised guidance for your back pain?
If you would like help making sense of your back pain, injury, or general musculoskeletal dysfunction, you can book with Grant either in Port Macquarie or via an online telehealth consultation.
