Is your lower back bothering you? If you're struggling with back pain, you're not alone. The vast majority of people are plagued by a bad back at one point or another in their lives, often repeatedly or long-term. But most of them don't have to suffer. Read on for a few tips that may help alleviate your back pain, especially if you tend to sit too much.

Your back takes quite a beating these days. We spend hours and hours sitting at work, then more hours sitting in cars and on the sofa.

You'd think that conditions would have been far worse way back when people were performing "back-breaking" hard labor. And to a point that's probably true. But still... don't underestimate how hard it can be on your back to sit in front of a computer all day. Sitting in meetings or at a desk is not much better.

I'm serious. Hours of sitting with no breaks, or very few breaks, can make anyone's back give out. Even ergonomic chairs can only help so much. So here's what you should do:

1) Take breaks

That's right. Take breaks from sitting. Get up and walk around for a few minutes at least once an hour. Make yourself a cup of coffee. Walk around your desk. Walk up and down a few flights of stairs. Go outside and walk around the parking lot or the building. If all fails, just pretend you have a weak bladder. Whatever it takes.

2) Handle phone calls standing up

Find ways to do your job in any position other than sitting down. Whether you're walking around, or even just standing up, your back will thank you. For example, there's no need to stay glued to your chair while you're making a phone call. A good quality speaker phone is a sound investment for lots of reasons, but your back health is certainly way up there.

3) Print out documents

Okay, so printing things out may not be politically correct, what with the extra trees that have to die for your saving your back. Still, if you have to review lots of documents, request hard copies or print them out, and read them while standing up or walking around.

4) Lie down
Lying down may not be possible in the office, but if you're working from home, it works really well. You can take those printed-out documents and review them while lying down.

One caveat though... don't go to sleep! If that's an issue, be sure to set an alarm clock to go off after your allotted reading time. Maybe even set two.

5) Lower your stress

A lot of back trouble comes from stress. So if you want to relieve some of your back pain, work on decreasing your stress levels. There are lots of ways to do that, from making your life less stressful overall to taking good care of yourself so you'll be more resilient to stress. Finally, you should also have an arsenal of stress busting tools at the ready to tame any stress as it's happening.