What You Put in Your Body Affects Your Health Greatly

Traveling can be detrimental to your back health in a number of ways, since you'll likely be crammed in a seat for long stretches of time and sleeping in a bed that might not be as comfortable at your bed at home. It's important to also think about how you carry your luggage, especially when you're traveling by air and can find yourself toting suitcases and other forms of luggage as you kill time in the airport. Improperly handling these items can put your back out of alignment and leave you scrambling to find a chiropractor for an adjustment when you reach your destination. Here are some good luggage habits to keep.

Alternate Shoulders When Carrying A Bag

If you're the type of traveler who favors carrying a tote bag over one shoulder with the strap across your body, you want to minimize the risk of this bag causing harm to your back. It has the potential to put your back out of alignment to the point that you need a chiropractic adjustment, given that the weight of the bag will be pulling on the strap on one of your shoulders. A simple way to lessen the risk of this causing back pain is to alternate shoulders at regular intervals. Doing so will put weight on each of your shoulders, which should hopefully keep your back in balance.

Take The Moving Sidewalk When You Can

Many airport travelers ride the moving sidewalk for fun or to save effort, but this method of getting across the terminal can also help to reduce your risk of back pain. When you're lugging a rolling suitcase behind you, your back is slightly turned to the side on which you're holding the suitcase handle. Over the course of a long period of time walking around the airport, this slightly turned position could potentially lead to pain — especially if it doesn't take much for your back to get sore. When you use the moving sidewalk, you can set your suitcase in front of you and keep your body square.

Find And Use A Luggage Cart

If you're able to find a luggage cart at the airport, you can use it to lessen the risk of sustaining a back injury that requires a chiropractic adjustment. You can pile each of your pieces of luggage onto the cart and push it; the pushing mechanics, provided your don't strain yourself, are ideal because your back is square and you're also using your lower-body muscles for power. This is better than, for example, pulling a rolling bag behind you and having a heavy bag draped over your shoulder.

If you do injure your back while traveling, contact a chiropractic clinic like Rockwood Chiropractic to schedule an appointment with a chiropractor.