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Introduction

Anyone who has ever suffered the misery of back pain knows how urgent it is to get relief. Once you are free from the pain, most people will learn as much as they can about their sore back to try to prevent back problems from arising again.

Back pain can vary from person to person, type to type, and region to region, such as the upper, middle and lower back. It can be a dull, constant ache or sudden sharp pain like a dagger that makes it almost too painful to move. It can start quickly if you fall, get a sports injury, or lift something too heavy. Or it might worsen over time, getting progressively worse.

One thing is for sure, the pain in a memorable one, and the majority of people will experience it at some point in their lives. Let’s get started with what back pain is and how common it can be. What is back pain and how common is it?

Back pain can occur for a range of reasons that are either structural, musculoskeletal, nervebased, or a sign of an underlying disorder. Most back pain is structural or musculoskeletal and the nerves can be affected by changes in the structure of the spine.

The spine is a complex system of interlocking bones and joints called vertebrae. The spinal column extends from the base of our skull all the way down to the tailbone at our pelvis, the coccyx. The many vertebrae that make up the spine are labeled in terms of area, and each is given a number so that all doctors know which they are referring to if there are any issues with the back that need to be dealt with.

Starting from the neck, the 4 areas are the:

Cervical
Thoracic
Lumbar and
Sacral regions.

The cervical region has 7 vertebrae, the thoracic 12, the lumbar 5 and the sacrum 5 bones, all fused together. The coccyx is actually made up of 4 small fused bones.

Most people experience lower back pain. Up to 80% of the population will have it at least once in their lives.

It tends to occur in older people and can increase with age, but of course anyone can get back pain due to injury. The prevalence varies with gender. Women are more likely to have lower back pain, a prolapsed or slipped disc, and sciatica, that is, pain in the sciatic nerves that run from the back down to the lower leg.

The prevalence also varies with race. Black women are two to three times more likely than white women to have part of the lower spine slip out of place.

What are the main causes of back pain? Let’s look at this topic in the next chapter.

What are the main causes of back pain?

Injury is the most common cause of back pain. It is often related to picking up things in such a way as to harm the spine, its nerves, or the muscles around it. For example, many people trying to lift a heavy object with bend over it with their arms straight and try to pull it towards their chest. This strains the muscles, especially in the lower back. Learning how to lift a heavy object properly, as we will discuss later in this guide, can help prevent back injury and a sore back. Anyone can have back pain, but some things that can increase your risk include:

Poor physical fitness

Back pain is more common in people who are not fit. A solid core will strengthen the back as well.

Being overweight

Carrying extra pounds, especially around the middle, can stress the back and cause pain. It is also usually a sign of a flabby core, and flabby muscles are weak and more prone to injury.

Heredity

Some causes of back pain can have a genetic component and run in families.

Various health issues

Some types of arthritis and cancer can cause back pain. Osteoporosis, a thinning of the bones, can also result in hairline fractures, bone spurs and other structural changes that can cause back pain.

Smoking tobacco

Smokers with bone injuries heal around twice as slowly as non-smokers. One of the reasons may be that they do not circulate enough nutrients in the body to be able to heal bones and support good back health. As they age, their bones can become so brittle that smoker’s cough can trigger back pain and even injury.

Your job

If you have to lift, push, or pull often in your job, you are more at risk for injury. Many companies offer their workers braces to support the spine, but they need to be worn correctly in order to do any good.

If you sit at a desk all day and do not sit up straight, you may also get back pain. This will most commonly be in the lower part of the back, since this takes so much pressure and weight when you are sitting, but it can also occur in the neck, shoulders and middle of the back as well.

Lower back pain is one of the most common causes of pain, poor quality of life and lost productivity in the workplace. Chronic back pain can affect every area of your life, including work, sleep, sex, caring for your children, and more.

Fortunately, there are a range of ways to prevent back issues, and to treat them if they do arise. These include natural remedies, medications, and in extreme cases, surgery. The treatments will depend on the cause of the pain.

Sometimes the cause is very obvious, such as an injury. In other cases, the pain is real, but might require a process of elimination to determine where it is coming from and why.

Doctors try to classify the pain in terms of type and location in order to try to track down the cause and give effective treatment. Let’s look at different kinds of back pain in the next chapter.

Different types of back pain

Back pain will be classified as upper, middle and lower. They will also indicate whether or not the pain is on the left or the right. This can give a clue as to which of the many causes of back pain might be contributing to a patient’s issue.

The causes of back pain can be broadly classified as relating to:

Structure
Muscle pain
Nerve pain
Inflammation, such as is caused by arthritis

Three common classifications of back pain include:

Axial pain

This is also referred to as mechanical pain, and is usually the result of a muscle sprain or strain. It can be dull or sharp.

Referred pain

Referred pain moves around from location to location. It is associated with age-related changes to the spine and can be described as dull and achy.

Radicular pain

This is nerve pain that will often radiate outwards along the path of the affected nerve and can cause the arm or leg to become numb or weak. The pain is described as searing. This pain can result from a number of different causes, including:

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WHAT IS ATTRACTION MARKETING?

Attraction marketing may be the buzz word that is out there commonly heard by most Internet marketers. Yet, what does this mean? As an Internet marketer, you do need to know what this type of marketing is as it will likely be one of the most important, profitable tools you have in low cost online marketing that is highly effective.

First, understand what it is and then learn how to implement it within your own business. Most business owners can find success using this method to help them to develop their online business. It works in any sector, industry or niche. When applied effectively, it is a low cost, long term success tool no marketer should go without.

WHAT IS IT?

The short definition of what attraction marketing is may seem too simple. It is simply a term that means that the Internet marketer uses the Internet to help attract people to the business they are in.

To take this to another level, attraction marketing can be defined as bringing people to you rather than going after them. The best way to see this is to take a look at the opposite method, the way that most print or "non online" advertising is done.

In traditional advertising, countless dollars are spent to find the consumer most likely to invest in the product or service. Billboards are placed along freeways for radio stations, for example, since people listen to the radio most often in the car. Advertisements go to the most likely consumer rather than the consumer coming to the product directly for a need.

In attraction marketing, the consumer comes to you and your product or service because they have heard that it is something that can benefit them, in some way. Ultimately, this allows for the business to do well since the advertisements are being presented in a pleasant manner. Internet marketing is not often about catchy slogans and flashy ads. Rather, it is a method of bringing people in to information, products and services because they are already interested. Mastering this can help a business to grow quickly.

THE QUESTION IS: DOES IT WORK?

Does attraction marketing work? The short answer to this question is yes, but there are plenty of fantastic examples of how it works. One good one is to consider the election of Mr. Obama. Regardless of whether you are from the U.S. or not, and no matter what side of the ticket you were rooting for, one thing has to be said. Mr. Obama's ability to use Internet marketing, including attraction marketing methods, helped him win this election, according to many professionals. Obama used the various tools in Internet marketing to help him to win his election because he and his campaign moreover knew the importance and success it could bring. The world goes to the web to learn what it needs to, in today's culture. More so, the Internet provides an easy, affordable way to reach millions of people every single day. No other medium offers this.

The question is, how did Obama use attraction marketing to win the Presidential Election of the United States? Using attraction marketing tools, websites, and even things like GoogleAds helped him to make it happen.

In fact, Twitter.com was used by Mr. Obama as one of the many methods of attraction marketing he used. By gaining a huge following and communicating through them in short clips, he could converse with everyday people, put his message out and do it all without spending a penny for it. Another example of this is Facebook. Everyone on the web knows that Facebook.com is a heaven for younger generation individuals who like to find each other and chat. The trend has grown. In fact, businesses, politicians, and even employers are using it as a tool to connect with others. Mr. Obama's Facebook page was yet another form of attraction marketing that helped him to get his message out. As you can see, there are excellent ways that attraction marketing works. For most of the general public, you aren't trying to win the presidential election. Nevertheless, this tool can still be used to help virtually anyone to gain success in getting traffic to their website.

APPLYING ATTRACTION MARKETING METHODS TO YOUR BUSINESS

Any Internet marketer can apply the lessons learned to their own Internet business. There are three main parts to developing a successful attraction marketing campaign, but the good news is that none of them are difficult, costly or overly time consuming.

Here, we'll explore these three parts and find out how you can put them to use no matter what type of Internet marketing business you have.

In short, they are as follows:

1. Consumers find you, your products or services on the web.

2. Consumers allow you to contact them.

3. You provide consumers with information they can use and benefit from, through email, and keep your business in front of them all the time.

To better understand how to do this, keep reading.

PART 1: CONSUMERS FIND YOU

The first step in the process is to get people to find you online. Remember, with attraction marketing, they are coming to you. You are not going out searching for them and advertising directly. So, how do you get more people to find you online?

WEBSITE DESIGN FIRST

There are several ways to accomplish this. First, the ultimate first step is to have a useful website and/or blog where you can talk with, work with and interact with your visitors. You will need to ensure it is information based rather than a sales gimmick. Online, sales gimmicks, long sized sales letters are less likely to work than other methods of marketing, especially in attraction marketing. Make sure your website tells visitors that you are providing a service to them, information to them and not a sales ad to convince them to buy.

ARTICLE DIRECTORIES

Next, you will need to get your information out there. For example, develop excellent articles and detailed outlines related to your business or product and then get it out into the mainstream. You can post them on various article directories.

The benefit of doing this is two-fold. Due to the extreme popularity of many of these websites, Google ranks articles quickly there and many get first page Google results if they are optimized properly. This means that when someone looking for information on a product or service you are offering searches for it in Google, chances are good your article will pop up as a result.

Another benefit is that quality article directories work for what their intended purpose is. That purpose is to allow webmasters to pick up these articles (with your resource box on them) and use them on their websites or in their blogs. Their readers instantly get to read what you are talking about and they can click on the link and take it back to your website where they can buy what you are offering.

Yet another extension of this is the ability to get that golden back link to your website. This alone helps to boost your website's ranking in Google's search engines, and in other search engines. The more back links pointing into your website, the more people will find you and the better Google ranks your website. And, all you have done is write an article.

SOCIAL NETWORKING WEBSITES

From this point, there are many other ways to build that successful attraction marketing. One of the most attractive, enjoyable ways to get your business out there is, in fact, to talk about it! Social networking is what it sounds like. It is a method of communicating with others about anything you want to, really.

Most social networking websites where not started to help businesses to grow, but most of them are able to be used this way. Going back to our example, Mr. Obama used many of them to get to his people.

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WRITING A GREAT ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER

In this world, there are definitely 2 types of electronic newsletters. One type grabs the readers and actively (usually dramatically) improves your sales, while the other languishes on a screen for only a matter of seconds before it heads straight for the trash bin.

Now, you want an electronic newsletter that will act as a great marketing tool for you and that will seriously raise your sales. Most companies who have good electronic newsletters attest that the increased sales arising from the newsletter are actually the final step in terms of the newsletter development.

The world of sales is like a pyramid with a staircase to the top. You climb each step with your customers, and then when you get towards the top, your sales simply start to take off. But before you start scribing your electronic newsletter, you need to be aware of its purpose.

AIMS OF AN ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER

Writing an electronic newsletter is not just about reaching your customers and potential customers. There is a whole lot more to it than that. In fact, a great electronic newsletter will achieve the following without you even having to try too hard:

1. Establish and/or consolidate your brand or service.

2. Determine that you are a leader in your field.

3. Prove that your company is one that has integrity and commitment, and is an authority.

4. Demonstrate your professionalism and knowledge.

5. Increase your presence on the Internet with associated, hidden benefits.

6. Create a trusting relationship between your customers/potential customers and yourself.

7. Bring customers to you!

Now with all of those benefits, it is easy to simply stop reading now, rush off, and create your own newsletter, and then sit back, waiting for all of the good things to happen. Now, here is the bad news: if you don’t write a great electronic newsletter, but one that is simply average and lacks any proper, appropriate content and graphics, then your newsletter will demonstrate that your company is not very professional, hasn’t taken the time to learn how to create a good/great newsletter, and as a result, make customers wonder why they should use your company? They would prefer to go to a company that shows them some respect!

HAVE A LOT OF RESPECT FOR YOUR READERS

Although we usually talk about ‘Have a little respect’ when it comes to your customers, you need to have not just a ‘little’ respect, you need to have a lot of respect for your readers and potential readers; otherwise, your newsletter will simply be thrown into the trash bin and not be read. People have busy lives. We all have to work hard, to cope with changing, and often, quite difficult times. This means that people’s time is precious, so they will make or find the time to read good quality material that is relevant and of interest to them, but they will not make any time available to read a newsletter that fails to address them appropriately. This is why respect is so important when it comes to your readers.

Know Your Readers

Knowing your readers shows them respect. All you have to do is to take a little time to know who they are, what is of interest to them, and what will reach them directly. One fundamental error that is often made is to use an electronic newsletter as a platform for views or as a mouthpiece, serving only the writer and not the reader. But your readers are not dumb; they will soon pick up on this and press that delete key before they have finished the first paragraph. So you have to get to know them. Now this may seem like an impossible challenge; if you want to send your electronic newsletter out to hundreds, if not thousands, of customers, then how can you possibly ‘know’ them?

Well, you don’t have to know their birthdays or what they like to eat at Thanksgiving, but what you do need to know is what will interest them.

What kind of information are they looking for? Do they need to have legal updates? Is there any legislation that may impact on their businesses or lives that you need to be telling them about?

You also need to consider what they will appreciate in terms of how you and your business can help them. Are there any hidden benefits to using your business? Can you solve some of the complexities of life for them? Are there any direct benefits that your particular style of business can bring to them?

Only when you know your readers and can have a good understanding of what they want are you in a position to start thinking about the style and the content of your electronic newsletter. True, this can be a daunting task, but if you are struggling with it, then enlist the help of a friend/colleague who can ensure that you are on the right track: remember that two heads are always better than one!

CHOOSING THE STYLE OF YOUR NEWSLETTER

The style and look of your newsletter is important and one that should not be overlooked. Basically, your style needs to reflect the fact that this is a professional document, not some high school newsletter (many of which actually look pretty professional now).

You need to establish a corporate style in the newsletter, no matter how small your business actually is. Each newsletter needs to be set out in the same style, be written in the same style and have the same format. This ensures that the identity of the newsletter starts to emerge, so that when it pops up in someone’s inbox, they immediately recognize it as a ‘good read’ and will open it. If you write using different logos, graphics that change dramatically, and so on, then your newsletter may never ever be opened. The trick is to stay consistent!

Graphics:

Graphics are really important when it comes to your newsletters. Many writers of electronic newsletters have taken the time to get to know and directly target their readers, have written content that is professional, relevant and interesting, but let themselves down by using clip-art-type graphics that are simply not sophisticated enough for today’s market.

Graphics are important because they can highlight your point, break up a page of text that may seem too heavy and dull otherwise, and simply brighten up a page. But using cheap, rudimentary graphics can simply ‘dumb down’ your newsletter and make it seem cheap. It is far better to use some pictures or images that are more professional looking, even if they cost a few dollars. Yet there is another danger with graphics: if you use a lot of images at a high resolution, then your electronic newsletter can start to become really big. So big in fact that people will delete it rather than bother to read it, so try to keep your electronic newsletter to a realistic size, some 1-2 megabytes maximum. If you get up to 5-6 megabytes or bigger, then people may simply view it as too big and send it to the electronic trash can, no matter how good your content is.

Layout:

Always place the most important information at the start of your electronic newsletter. So have a title for your first article that really grabs people’s attention. Make sure it is short enough for them to be able to se it before opening your mail; therefore, keep it brief.

Your first page should also contain certain important information, such as your contact details, as well as an option to stop subscribing to the newsletter. Now doesn’t that seem strange? You want people to read your fantastic electronic newsletter, don’t you? So why on Earth would you want to make it really easy for them to stop subscribing to it?

Well, if you show that you are really laid back about someone unsubscribing to your newsletter, then you have not just shown that you respect your readers, you also show that you think that the content of your newsletter is of worth; you have made it easy to unsubscribe because you know that people will not do this, that your newsletter is worth reading!

Obviously, there may be some people who feel that they don’t want to read your newsletter and may indeed unsubscribe, but do not have a faint heart. It is definitely worth taking the risk and being confident. So let them unsubscribe if they don’t want to read it; after all it is their loss, isn’t it?