World Spine Day 2025: Neurosurgeon shares 6 daily habits that damage your spine: Sleeping on stomach, soft mattress

Be cautious of these daily habits that may be ‘destabilizing’ your spine health. Neurosurgeon reveals the common habits at fault.

World Spine Day 2025: 16 October is observed as World Spine Day to raise awareness regarding spinal health. This year's theme is ‘invest in your spine.' On this observance day, let's take a closer look at some of the daily harmful habits.

Long hours of sitting at work is hazardous to your spinal health. (Picture credit: Freepik)

To understand how some common habits may impact spinal health, Dr Gaurav Batra, neurosurgeon of brain and spine at Max Super Speciality Hospital at Vaishali, shared with HT Lifestyle, that one needs to take care of the spine as it is the very bedrock of the body's architecture, responsible for the majority of movements. But nowadays, some daily habits put spinal health at risk, causing severe backache.

“Back pain will also accumulate slowly and will become increasingly worse. Most stress that is acquired from posture, ergonomics, and habit can be avoided by being aware," he emphasised. "Minor adjustments in how we sit, move, and sleep can have a big difference in how it keeps a healthy, ache-free spine.” To fix your back pain, you need to change some habits.

Dr Batra shared these five habits that quietly destabilise your spine, along with one pro tip for each on how you can rectify them:

1. Long sitting and posture

Make sure your posture is correct when you sit at work. (Picture credit: Freepik)

• Hours of sitting, and particularly with a curved back and bowing neck, puts the lower back under tremendous tension.
• Gradually, the constant tension seeps into the muscles of the spine, represses disc nutrition, and hastens wear and tear. The consequence is nagging stiffness of the back, fatigue, and even disc prolapse.

Tip: Sit with support for your lower back, screen at eye level, and take hourly moving breaks.

2. Excessive smartphone use

• Repetition of neck flexion for extended periods of time spent on a phone can multiply the cervical spine's load hundreds of times.
• This is commonly referred to as ‘tech neck’, which results in neck pain, shoulder stiffness, and premature cervical spondylosis.

Tip: Phone at eye level with two-handed support, and intersperse gentle neck stretches during practice.

3. Having a sedentary lifestyle

• A sedentary lifestyle weakens the deep spinal stabilising muscles, such as the back extensors and core.
• This loads the discs and ligaments mechanically, resulting in chronic low back pain and deteriorated posture.

Tip: Regular stretching, strengthening, and brisk walking restore spinal balance and endurance.

4. Picking up objects the incorrect way

• Bending at the waist to lift heavy objects places extreme stress on the lower back and may result in disc injury or abrupt muscle spasm.

Tip: Always bend knees and hips, keep the object close to the body, and never turn while lifting.

5. Using defective mattresses

• Lying on a sagging or soft mattress will most likely disturb the spine and hyper-extend the back muscles during sleep.

Tip: Lie on a medium-firm mattress.

6. Sleeping on stomach

Lying on one's stomach will most likely hyper-extend the neck and lower back as well.

Tip: Lie on a medium-firm mattress and experiment with lying on the side with a pillow between your knees to maintain the natural spinal alignment.

Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.