Easy Exercise for Lower Back Pain

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac.

I’m sure you've experienced lower back pain at some point in your life. You may even be experiencing it right now.

In a society where we spend most of our time sitting on chairs and couches, tightness and pain in the lower back is all too common, and one of the most popular complaints from patients in our clinic.

And while more chronic cases may not resolve so quickly, my hope is that this article will empower you to better understand your pain, as well as to help you use a simple exercise to alleviate some of the discomfort right away.

Why You May Have Lower Back Pain

There are many reasons why lower back pain develops.

One cause is too much compression from excessive sitting or standing that causes the area around the lumbar spine to tighten up.

As we get older, not only do the Yin or fluids that lubricate your body’s tissues, tendons and sinews naturally diminish, but your spine (byway of gravity) also starts to compress.

This is why it’s so important to preserve and replenish your Yin constantly through proper diet and rest, and to prevent your spine from compressing through elongation exercises and movement practices like Yoga and Qi Gong.

By elongating your spine through these various practices as well as by hanging upside down or from a pull-up bar regularly, you’ll maintain the integrity of the intervertebral spaces in your spine.

This helps prevent abnormal narrowing of the spinal canal or neural foramen, which can lead to spinal stenosis with pressure on the spinal cord or nerve roots that cause pain, numbness or weakness in the limbs.

Another cause of lower back pain can be related to burnout from a lack of sleep, excessive work, exercise or sex, or a diet filled with processed foods — all of which contribute to adrenal fatigue.

If you’ve been pushing your body too hard for too long or you’re not sleeping enough, you may start to excessively tax your adrenal glands, which can lead to hormonal and metabolic dysfunction.

The adrenal glands are a pair of endocrine glands located above your kidneys that produce a variety of hormones, including adrenaline and the steroids aldosterone and cortisol, that help regulate your metabolism, immune system, blood pressure, response to stress and other essential biological functions.

Your adrenal glands are associated with your Kidneys in Chinese Medicine so excessive taxation on the adrenals burdens your Kidney Qi, which can lead to lower back and knee pain, fatigue, and premature aging, among other symptoms.

Lower back pain may also result from injury, as well as from psychological and emotional upset that’s mostly associated with fear.

Fear is the emotion of the Kidneys according to Chinese Medicine and since the Kidneys are located in your lower back, fear can trigger tension in this area of your body.

According to Louise Hay, author of You Can Heal Your Life, lower back pain may reflect your fear of money or lack of financial support.

And since I always believe that moving your body is essential to shifting your mind and mood, I think one of the best ways to shift out of an emotional state like fear that may be keeping you stuck is to move your body, simply and gently.

Easy Exercise for Lower Back Pain

The simple exercise I'm sharing with you takes 2 minutes and can be done sitting on the floor with your legs crossed or sitting up on the edge of a chair.

It'll not only free your lower back, but it also opens your hips and helps send energy up your spine to bring Qi to your brain for greater alertness, focus and concentration.

So if your back is tight from sitting around (or even standing) too much during this pandemic, you'll want to make this simple exercise part of your daily routine.

Opening the Heavenly Pillar is an excellent exercise to help alleviate lower back pain, tension and stiffness and is gentle enough to do sitting in a chair or on the floor.

Make sure to start with small, slow circles at first, then work up to more rapid rotations.

This is one of the easiest exercises for lower back pain and to release tension in the spine in general.

Taking just two minutes to open your spine can also reset your mood and help you feel more embodied.

Once you’ve practiced, let me know how this exercise made you feel in the comments below!

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Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. is Co-Owner and Director of A Center for Natural Healing in Santa Clara, California, a health and wellness clinic that specializes in Classical Chinese Medicine and Traditional Japanese Acupuncture. Dr. Moafi offers a one-of-a-kind form of empowerment coaching, clinical services, and transformational workshops and online courses that blend the ancient practices of Classical Chinese Medicine and Yoga. More information at www.setarehmoafi.com. 

Food as a Mirror

by Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac.

We’ve all heard the saying “you are what you eat” but what may be more true is that what you eat is a reflection of how you feel about yourself. 

When we make healthier food choices, we're also making choices about the quality with which we want to live our lives.

A healthy lifestyle comes from knowledge through the proper resources but also through tuning in with the self. Adapting a healthy lifestyle means looking at all aspects of your life – your work, relationships and your diet.

Proper nutrition is one of the primary pillars of healthy living and, for a lot of people, it’s also one of the most challenging. My hope is to empower you to be more conscious of your diet because it is one of the most impactful aspects of your health over which you have total control.

 

Food and Digestion According to Chinese Medicine

According to Chinese Medicine, the Spleen and Stomach are the primary organs responsible for digestion. Everything you eat and drink has to be digested and transformed into Qi, or energy, with the help of these organs.

There are two major kinds of Qi in the body - the essence Qi, often referred to as the prenatal Qi, and postnatal Qi, which is produced from food and drink (Gu Qi), in the Stomach. Prenatal Qi is the constitutional essence with which we're born and postnatal Qi is our basic daily energy that we cultivate through our diet and lifestyle. The healthier the diet, the better quality Qi we can extract and therefore the greater our endurance.

The Gu Qi, or “grain” as it is often called in the classics, that enters the Stomach, is transmitted to the Lungs to produce the defense or “guard Qi,” also known as Wei Qi, which is essential for maintaining one’s circadian rhythm.

Wei Qi forms in the Lungs through the Gu Qi that first enters the Stomach. As Chapter 21 of Nei Jing Su Wen stated, “Beverages enter the stomach. Overflowing essence Qi is transported upward to the spleen. The spleen Qi spreads the essence, which turns upward to the lung” (Unschuld, 2011, 375). 

The Spleen sends Gu Qi up to the Lungs, where (with the help of Kidney Qi) it combines with air and transforms into another form of energy known as Zong Qi, which is often referred to as "gathering Qi." 

Zong Qi is formed from the combination of Gu Qi extracted through food and drink and Lung Qi extracted through the breath. Therefore, the more nutritious your diet and the better your capacity for deep respiration, the better quality Qi you'll have to support the various organs' Qi in the body.

Since Gu Qi is also used to produce Wei Qi, which controls circadian rhythm and supports immunity, a healthy diet also supports sleep and healthy immune function. 

An unhealthy diet that's high in sweet, spicy, fried and processed foods taxes the digestive system and over time will make us not only feel lethargic but also can damage the gut, or the Spleen and Stomach terrain, and lead to chronic inflammation.

In Western Medicine, the impact of nutrition on overall health has been confirmed through recent studies on the gut-brain axis (GBA).

Eating healthy can be so simple (and beautiful!) - Sprouted quinoa, lentils and adzuki beans with brussel sprouts, arugula and beet salad, avocado, butternut squash and baked sweet potatoes. We dressed the salad, grains and brussel sprouts with organic olive oil, black and cayenne peppers, and lemon juice from Meyer lemons in our garden.

The Gut-Brain Axis

Recent studies have revealed that the enteric nervous system (ENS), which is a system of neurons within the gastrointestinal tract and often referred to as the ‘second brain,’ may be linked to immune function, hormonal regulation, psychological disorders, and even autism. The bidirectional communication between the brain (i.e. the central nervous system) and the ENS is known as the gut-brain axis (GBA), an information superhighway of chemicals and hormones that provides constant feedback and influences - among other things - our moods, emotions and sleep patterns.

The vagus nerve is the longest cranial nerve in the body. It passes through the neck to the abdomen and interfaces with parasympathetic control of the heart, lungs and digestive tract. Evidence indicates that the communication between the microbiota in the gut and the brain involves the vagus nerve, which transmits information from the luminal environment of the gut to the central nervous system (CNS). 

Important hormones and neurotransmitters such as melatonin, which regulates sleep, and serotonin, which affects mood, are produced in the gastrointestinal tract. In fact, about 90% of serotonin, which can affect mood and social behavior, appetite and digestion, sleep, memory and sexual desire and function, is produced in the gut. 

The health of the gut therefore impacts the health of the brain and our ability to process information, manage stress, sleep, balance our emotions, as well as digest and assimilate food.

Chinese Medicine Perspective of Digestion, Emotions and the Gut-Brain Axis

Li Dong-yuan (1180 – 1251 c.e.) was a Chinese medical scholar who is considered to be one of the Four Great Masters of the Jin-Yuan period of Chinese Medicine. As founder of the Earth School, Li believed that the health of the Spleen and Stomach was the foundation for disease prevention. He developed the concept of Yin fire, which he believed is produced by excessive emotions and poor diet, both of which damage the original Qi and overwhelm the Spleen and Stomach. Excessive emotions engender heat internally. This heat, accompanied by weakness in the Spleen and Stomach, eventually flares upward into the Heart causing symptoms such as restlessness, anxiety and insomnia.

The gut-brain axis dynamics discussed earlier parallel Li Dong-yuan’s emphasis on the pivotal role of the Spleen and Stomach, or gut health, for all human functioning. Li believed that disease pathology manifests as a result of damage to postnatal Qi, the source of which is the Spleen and Stomach. 

The Spleen and Stomach is responsible for creating the Gu Qi, or energy that is transformed from food. Excessive or unbalanced emotions and stress weaken the Spleen and Stomach and therefore the gut. According to Li Dong-yuan, this weakness leads to stagnation of Stomach Qi that eventually turns into heat or Fire. This pathological heat relates to any inflammatory or infectious condition within the gastrointestinal tract.

We can therefore surmise that heat accumulation in the gut eventually affects the brain and interferes with the harmonious interplay between the gut and brain. Furthermore, pathological heat in the gut burns out the Stomach Yin which correlates to the destruction of the intestinal mucosa.

Over time, as the mucosal lining of the gut deteriorates, "leaky gut" syndrome develops allowing for undigested proteins to leak into the blood stream and begin the cascade of inflammation throughout the body. This is one of the fundamental pathological processes underlying a host of autoimmune diseases.

 

Diet and Your Health

Some argue that to eat healthfully is too costly or a less convenient option. But we can’t be short-sighted. The long-term return on your investment is quite high, even if in the short-term it is a little more expensive to cook healthy foods at home rather than eat processed foods, for example.

Nothing is worth more than the health of your mind and body. And nothing will give you as great a return on your investment.

Your health is the pillar of your future success, happiness and fulfillment. Nothing is possible without health, and in health anything is possible.

So it should naturally be the number one place where we put our resources.

In Chinese Medicine, diet can be used as a modality in and of itself to heal chronic illness.

Diet is also the most important self-care tool we all have. Our diet provides an opportunity to feel empowered because we're able to have a say in our self-care and well-being through the choices we make with food.

What we eat is a mirror for how we feel about ourselves, and the choices we make with what we eat also allows us to choose how we want to feel and what we want to create in our lives.

If you’re interested in learning about Classical Chinese nutrition in greater depth, you can learn more and join the waitlist for my upcoming program.

Once you've finished reading this article, I'd love to hear from you on any or all of these questions in the comments below --
* How does what you eat reflect how you feel?
* Do you eat better or worse under stress?
* What's one change you could make in your diet to better reflect what you want to create in your life?

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Want to know how to
heal yourself with food?

Learn to use Classical Chinese Dietetics to create your custom nutrition plan so you can let go of overwhelm with food for good. Join the waitlist to get free insights & be the first to know when enrollment opens for my one-of-a-kind course.

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Setareh Moafi, Ph.D., L.Ac. is co-owner and Director of A Center for Natural Healing in Santa Clara, California. The Silicon Valley-based health and wellness clinic specializes in Classical Chinese Medicine and Traditional Japanese Acupuncture with a clinic and studio where Dr. Moafi offers clinical services and transformational workshops that blend the ancient practices of Classical Chinese Medicine and Yoga. More information at www.setarehmoafi.com and www.acenterfornaturalhealing.com.