HFES 2007 - Paper of the Day - Wednesday - Lifting While Upset

There was an interesting symposium held at the 2007 Human Factors & Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting. In a discussion on Musculoskeletal Disorder research done on back pain at Ohio State University's Biodynamics Laboratory was presented. A couple of findings were rather neat.

First is about pain perception. Pain usually occurs when the tissue being stressed is damaged. However inflammation causes extra sensitivity so we perceive pain earlier, even before damage, at inflamed tissue.

Second is that your mood affects the actual, physical loading on your spine. In a study that measured how much force was applied to your vertebrae in your upper back while lifting it was found that your emotional stress level increased the force. Rather shocking is the finding that the force exerted on your upper back triples when the lifting is done in an unpleasant environment over a pleasant one. Also it seems that introverts are affected a lot more than extroverts.