Imagine a magic pill.

Imagine that, while suffering with your back, somebody offered you a pill that would take your pain away and let you carry on as normal. Would you take it?

You would, wouldn’t you? Who wouldn’t?

But what if you knew that taking it meant that, next time, your back would go much sooner — and that the pain would then be a lot worse? Would you still take the pill?

Hmm, maybe not, but what’s the alternative?

The alternative is to loosen your back up

so that it feels easier all the time and doesn’t keep on twanging on you.

“How do I do that”?

You do it by hugging a cushion

Take a cushion or a pillow and fold it as much as you can. Then hold it firmly against your belly, directly over your belly-button. Hold it with both arms, as though you were embracing it.

Start hugging the cushion while standing up. Later, you can sit down if you want — or walk around.

As you’re standing, hugging the cushion to your belly, imagine your upper body curving over it. Continue by imagining the sides of your belly also coming around the cushion on both sides. Then add your hips: imagine your hips coming gently forwards underneath, stretching around the cushion.

It’s as though you were intending to engulf, to completely surround the cushion

But what’s the point of that?

The point is this: doing it will allow your back gradually to loosen up. Why would hugging a cushion do that?

Here’s why. If you try to stretch your back, it doesn’t work. There’s a reason for that. Even while you try to stretch your back, the pain (and the fear of more pain) causes you to stiffen and clench. The more you try to stretch, the more the pain makes you tighten up. The process becomes self-defeating and you just end up with even more pain.

How do you defeat a self-defeating process?

By out-witting it. Pretend you’re doing something else altogether. When you hug the cushion as I’m asking you to, you will be stretching your back muscles.

Stretching your back muscles is exactly what they need and, because you’re not trying to stretch them, the pain won’t stop you doing it. (If the pain does stop you, it means that you’ve stopped hugging the cushion and started trying to stretch your back. Don’t do that: just hug the cushion.)

20 minutes later, you’ll find yourself a whole lot looser and in much less pain.

So that’s the first step. What else do you need to do?

Step 2: Lying down

If I asked you to lie down at first, you probably wouldn’t be able to. It would be too painful. So you need to hug the cushion first.

When you’ve hugged the cushion, go and lie down on the floor. If you need help, you’ll find it in the action plan at the end of this article.

The third thing you will need to do to make sure this process works (and stays working) is to understand pain.

Step 3: Understanding pain

When you understand pain better, you can interpret what it’s telling you correctly and react more appropriately. Otherwise, you end up fighting the pain — and that just makes you tight as a tick.

When a certain movement always hurts, approach it differently. Instead of bracing yourself against the pain, accept that the movement will hurt and just move anyway.

When you do, when you just move without bracing against the pain, you do indeed get the sharp stab of pain that you expected — but then it’s gone. The rest of that movement is surprisingly easy.

This is a difficult subject so I’ve devoted a whole article to it. You’ll find the link to it in the action plan at the bottom of this article.

The fourth step for getting rid of lower back pain is learning to use your heels.

Step 4: Using your heels

When you’re progressing nicely with the above, there’s another very useful (but more difficult) thing you can do: you can learn to use your heels more.

Why use your heels more? The tightness in people’s backs is made a lot worse by how they stand and sit. Almost everyone stands and sits leaning backwards. That takes weight off their heels. They usually don’t think they’re leaning backwards but they are.

Learning to use your heels more will help you correct that. As you do, your back will lengthen and widen. It will begin to free up nicely. You can’t imagine how wonderful that feels until you’ve actually experienced it.

I’ve written a whole article on learning how to use your heels more. It’s called: “How to be ‘in the zone’ when working at your desk”. Read it and do what it says. The link is at the bottom of this article.

Is there anything else?

Those four steps (hugging a cushion, lying down, understanding pain and using your heels) should keep you busy — but there’s more to come. This will include:

• Where is your head joined to your body? Learn how to stop bending your neck to move your head.
• How to stop straining and bending your back when you reach for something. Learn where your hip joints are. (Did you know that almost everyone believes their hip joints are about eight inches higher than they really are)?

Look out for this information in future articles. If you’re not already receiving these articles by e-mail, then go here to request them.
Do it now and make sure you don’t miss those articles.
If you have any questions, e-mail me.

Never again will you need to wish for that magic pill.

Action Plan

Now it’s time to put what you’ve just read into practice. Ideally start now. If you can’t, start as soon as you can.

Here’s your four-part action plan –

1. Hug a cushion

(see above to remind you what to do).

2. Practise your lying down

There’s a best way to lie down. It’s called semi-supine.
Just lying down on the floor any old way is good.
Lying down in semi-supine is much more effective.

I’ve written a series of six articles that explain how to do semi-supine. Read the first article — and then lie down in the way it tells you to.

Here’s the first article on semi-supine.

Is lying down painful? You can find how to deal with the pain here

Don’t bother with the other articles just yet (but make sure you come back to them some time soon). The full series is here.

3. Understand what your pain is telling you

Read the article on understanding pain. A crystal clear understanding of what pain is about is essential, so don’t skip this step.

4. Use your heels

The “in the zone” article tells you how. Find it here.

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Further Resources

Here are some ways I can help you further.

Wherever you live

1. If you’re not already getting my free weekly article delivered to your inbox, then go here to get it.
2. Repoise is our membership site for people who are serious about improving themselves (and getting out of pain as they do that). Find out more here: SmilingBackMethod.com/Repoise When you join, you will:–
   • have daily access to me. Together we will work out what’s going wrong for you and how to fix it
   • learn from reading other Repoise members’ questions and following their progress as they work with me
   • get access to all my articles, not just the ones that are published on my web-site
   Check it out and judge for yourself: SmilingBackMethod.com/Repoise
3. I’m writing a book about my work. It will come out on the 1st July 2010. The book I was going to write this year (on the Tube Principle) was a bit too specialised so I changed my mind about writing that book. This new book will still include a chapter or two on the Tube Principle — and, of course, much more besides.

If you’re in Liverpool (or can get to Liverpool)

1. I’m also running introductory workshops in Liverpool teaching you how to apply my work to improve your life. Go here for details of the next workshop: SmilingBackMethod.com/workshop
2. There’s no substitute for individual lessons. Ring me on 0151 708 6172 to book your initial lesson. (Leave your number so I can get back to you).

If you’re further away and can’t get to Liverpool

1. There’s still no substitute for individual lessons. Here’s where you can find a teacher near you in the UK or elsewhere
2. Remember to still do the things I listed above for everyone. Even if you’re having lessons from someone else, you will find these a very great help. They’ll help you understand your lessons better and get a lot more out of them. All my own pupils read my weekly articles and several of them are active members of Repoise.