Your attempts to fix your back pain may be exactly what’s causing it.

As unromantic as it might sound, human beings aren’t very different to computers.

Like computers we have finite memory, we have limited processing power, and we have “software” (in our case a nervous system) which manages these resources to help us to deal with the various things which life throws our way.

Another thing we have in common with computers is that this process isn’t perfect. Because of the sheer number of things we have to do at any given moment; managing deadlines, remembering friends’ birthdays, not tripping over in front of the person we like, we have to automate some tasks, so that our conscious minds can focus on the essential things like getting work done or searching for cat videos on YouTube.

If our conscious minds become overwhelmed, more and more pressure is placed on our nervous system until it’s processing power starts to run low. As it does, the quality of the tasks it’s been left responsible for starts to suffer. Things like posture, short term memory, even breathing begin to deteriorate until we end up looking like our friend in the photo above.

The wrong tool for the job

(Kind of) thankfully, before anything as dramatic as a system shutdown happens, the decreased functioning will often lead to…