It used to be that if you had back pain, the doctor would tell you to stay in bed until you felt better. But I’m seeing more and more that people are not being kept in bed. Why is that?

While bedrest used to be recommended for back pain, many doctors began to worry about the long-lasting effects of bedrest. For some people, it could cause their muscles to atrophy, or get smaller and weaker from not being used. Bedrest can increase the chances of weight gain, and there are other issues, such as social isolation and psychological problems such as depression that may come in to play if the bedrest is long-term.

As doctors encouraged their patients with some types of chronic lower back pain, they found that there was no difference in the healing if a patient stayed in bed or didn’t. So, for this reason, bedrest is not automatically recommended now for all cases of chronic lower back pain.