What my back was telling me

I work as an accountant, and for years I spent nine or ten hours a day at my desk. I hardly noticed my body at all. Then, one morning last winter, I bent down to tie my shoes and felt a sharp pain in my lower back. For the rest of the week, I could not sit, stand or sleep properly.

At first, I tried to ignore it. I took painkillers and hoped the backache would go away on its own. When it was still there after a month, my wife persuaded me to see a doctor. The doctor sent me to a specialist, who asked me lots of questions about my daily life. What she told me surprised me. There was no serious injury. The real problem was that I almost never moved.

She did not give me a magic remedy. Instead, she gave me a list of simple exercises and told me to do them every day. She also recommended a short walk at lunchtime and a break every forty-five minutes. 'Your back is not broken,' she said. 'It's just weak because you sit still all day.'

Changing my habits was harder than doing the exercises. At work, I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to stand up. My colleagues laughed at first, but some of them soon joined me. A few months later, I started a beginners' yoga class with my wife. My muscles were sore after the first lesson, but the pain in my back slowly became weaker.

Today, my back feels better than it has for years. I still spend a lot of time at my desk, but I no longer sit there like a statue. Looking after your body does not have to mean expensive equipment or a long workout at the gym. Sometimes it just means getting up and moving a little, many times a day.