Sleeping On The Floor Can Improve Spinal Problems? Don't Sleep Too Soft, Not On The Floor
03 August 2024
This article is an excerpt of a question from the floor after a live health talk held by the Sin Chew Daily Easily team on 6 July 2024. It mainly records the questions asked by the audience and the answers given by Dr Lau Choon Ping regarding on Kyphosis.
How to prevent osteoporosis through diet and what are the special natural foods?
A: Calcium supplementation requires the intake of vitamin D, our body's most natural vitamin D is sunlight, although, but our lifestyle has been accustomed to early morning and late at night, very little contact with the sun, coupled with modern women fear of accelerated aging of the skin do not dare to sunbathe, so they will be accustomed to wear long-sleeved clothes, apply sunscreen, etc. Filtering the sun's nutrients, so the body lacks of vitamin D. So when you are deficient in vitamin D need additional supplementation through the skin to provide our bodies. So when you are deficient in Vitamin D, you need to take extra supplements to provide Vitamin D to our body through the skin. If you think the sun's ultraviolet rays are harmful to your skin, you can choose 8am or 6pm, when the sun's rays are milder, for about 30 minutes.
Our Asian diet consumes about 400mg of calcium per day, but this is not enough, we need 1,000 to 1,200mg of calcium per day, so we need to consume extra high calcium foods such as dairy products, fish, seaweeds, pulses and so on. We need to calculate our nutrient intake in every meal, however, after the food is digested by stomach acid, the nutrient intake by our body is very little, therefore, we can consume some high-calcium milk powder or high-calcium supplements, nowadays, there are a wide range of brands in the market, so you need to consult a dietitian before deciding which brands are suitable for you, if you feel uncomfortable after consuming, you can buy other brands or reduce the dosage to bring the If you feel uncomfortable after drinking it, you can buy another brand or reduce the dosage to minimise the discomfort.
Is it possible to improve the back muscles of a person who has frequent back pain through in-office targeted exercises?
A: Yes, not only that, but you also need to correct your sitting posture. There are two reasons why a person's back is often sore, one is too much work and the other is that the back muscles are too weak, so how to solve these two problems? It is to reduce the workload as well as to strengthen your lower back muscles, therefore, you need to pay attention to your workload as well as to perform some exercises to strengthen your back muscles, to change your wrong sitting posture, and as long as you achieve a balance, your lower back soreness will get better. Apart from strengthening your back muscles, you also need to perform stretching exercises to increase the flexibility of your back muscles, not just strong and stiff. Stiff muscles affect blood circulation, and endurance decreases with it, so a set of exercises for the back muscles is one that includes strengthening and stretching exercises
What should I do if I have osteoporosis and suffer from Diffuse Idiopathic Skeletal Hyperostosis (DISH) or Ankylosing Spondylitis?
A: DISH or ankylosing spondylitis are both inflammatory diseases of the skeleton, with the main symptom being a hardening of the spine and a tendency to fracture. There is no specific treatment for this type of disease, but rather, the treatment for osteoporosis is the same: take medication, get enough calcium and vitamin D, and choose exercises that are suitable for the patient.
Can a child with spinal problems sleep on a mattress on the floor?
A: This is a kind of myth, when the doctor suggests to parents that their children sleep on a firmer bed, they will hear it as: ‘Sleeping on the floor can improve the spine problem’, but in fact, the doctor really means to say that ‘don't sleep on too soft a mattress’, just because too soft a mattress can't give support to the spine, can't maintain the normal physiological curvature of the spine, and is not good for the back muscles. Can not maintain the normal physiological curvature of the spine, is not conducive to the back muscles, and therefore would recommend sleeping on a strong support mattress, but not the harder the better, simply sleep on the floor, which is too extreme, the focus is that the mattress should not be too soft.
Sleeping position is also another point to note, sleeping on the back is the most correct; not recommended to sleep on the stomach, only because the sleeper's head will not be on the pillow, he will head side to side, which is not conducive to the neck; side sleepers are not too big a problem (not divided into left and right), but the side sleepers should pay attention to is the shoulder, only because in the side of the pillow may not be high enough to lead to the neck tilted to one side when you are asleep, waking up after the neck will be sore, and the majority of the side sleeper in the sleep due to the pillow is not high enough to use arms. Most side sleepers use their arms as pillows to make up for the thickness of the pillow, but this aggravates neck and shoulder pain, so it is recommended that side sleepers use a higher pillow.
Source: Sin Chew Daily
