Every year my front desk team ask me if we need to open the clinic over the festive season. And every year I tell them YES WE DO!  Something strange happens during festive season and are phone lines are often busy with calls for help both before and after Christmas looking for emergency care.

Why do so many hurt themselves around the festive season?

We continue to see people who have hurt their backs doing the most simple of all activities over Christmas, but often it is the atypical activities they get caught up in like climbing up to the loft and rooting round for the Christmas decorations and the Christmas tree base.

All the different things we do can add up to a whole heap of pain!  Try these for starters…..

  • Buying the tree, putting it in on top of the car, and dragging it home and in through the door can many layers of tension – not just physical!
  • Making a fire, chopping wood and carrying it into the house can strain the upper body and shoulder, especially if you are not used to it.
  • Most commonly we see wrist and forearm pain from many hours of writing Christmas cards from our long and exhausting lists. We tend to sit down and do this all in ONE go, so it’s over and done with.
  • How do you wrap your presents? Sensibly sitting at the table or sitting hunched over on the floor for hours?  Add to that a tired body and long hours at work and you have the recipe for a strained back and creaky knees.  Yes it happens everywhere, every year!
  • Preparing and cooking the perfect meal is the cause of huge tension just about everywhere in the body.  Lugging all the shopping back to the car, standing for hours in the kitchen, hauling the turkey in and out of the oven and then the stress of trying to get everything to the table on time.

 

It’s not all doom and gloom but Christmas is a particularly sensitive time when we feel everything has to be ‘just so’: our houses in perfect order and wanting everything to go according to plan.

So what can we do?

  • Wrap and label presents as you buy them rather than stuffing everything under the bed and having to do it in one go (and if you do end up doing that, try wrapping at the table this year!)
  • Get everyone who is coming involved in preparing or cooking, so you have less to worry about and this is a great way of chatting while your work and no-one feels left out.
  • And maybe it’s worth putting the Christmas decorations at an easier place than last year.
  • Take a few breaks and make time for some stretches to ease achey backs: https://www.lucksyardclinic.com/videos/videos-lower-back-exercises/

In Sweden we have a word called “lagom” .  This means just right; not too much or too little. We recommend you maybe think of this before you go into full on festive mode rather than feeling the need to do frantic tidying, Heston Blumenthal cooking sessions or pleasing everyone around you and forgetting yourself.

Time for you is also important and don’t forget, it’s just one day of the year, friends and family are not just for Christmas……

with our best Seasons Greetings from Luck’s Yard.