Whenever there is an underlying soft tissue or bony injury in the spine, the nature’s way is to protect the part by not allowing that part to move, by spasm of the long paraspinal muscles. Thus any pain in the spine due to under-lying injuries has almost a 50% contribution by the superadded postural muscle spasm. Acute injuries with even severe degree of pain would vanish with rest, local heat, painkillers etc. within one to four weeks. But the problem of recurrent and chronic pain is the major concern. This happens when you return to the same life style of sedentary working in wrong postures full of psychological tensions.

d. Psychological stress

i. The role of stress in chronic low back pain  

In a survey conducted amongst sufferers of chronic low back pain of greater than three months, it was observed that the contribution to the degree of disability in low back pain by the psychological distress with abnormal illness behavior was about 43% and the contribution by the actual physical problem was only 67%. Sikorski et al., in 1996 published their studies on the role of psyche in 131 subjects with chronic low back pain in which they concluded that the demonstrable bone or soft tissue structural problems accounted for only 38% of the pain and the rest of it was all due to the psychological stress, as assessed by a Psychiatrist.