Full disclosure: I have been a low back pain guy for over half my life, starting with a bad case of sciatica when I was 16, probably due to being too chunky a kid playing volleyball and diving and jumping around too much.
Throughout all that time, I have had a keen personal and professional interest in the management of low back pain. It got me into yoga, which has been beneficial for overall flexibility and stress levels, but never completely relieved the back pain. I had done physical therapy and seen a chiropractor and done acupuncture, and all helped for a while, but inevitably the back pain returned.
Of course I tried medicines over the years and I honestly cannot say that anything helped very much. Tylenol or Advil or Aleve all help take the edge off a little bit but they were not life-changing.
This all hit of boiling point a little over 2 years ago when I was doing yoga and suddenly had a distinct sensation that something was wrong. I spent the next month doing the dumb thing of being my own doctor and convincing myself that there was some other reason I was unable to go up on my tiptoes on my left leg, even while sitting down, and being unable to tolerate sitting in a car for more than a few minutes. But in the back of my mind, I knew I had a nerve compression and an MRI and a few specialists later, I was getting back surgery done at a much younger age than I had hoped.
During my recovery, I had a renewed interest in making sure I did not have to do that again. I redoubled my efforts to work on good core strength and physical therapy and work on my flexibility, but I was just doing the same things I had done in the past and still had lingering concerns.
6 months later I was able to go to a yoga retreat with my wife and surprisingly able to spend 3 minutes lying down with a yoga block pressing my back upwards about a foot in the air. It felt great to be at that point, but with one small child already and another on the way, I was worried about how much time I would have to do things like yoga and exercising.
While at the retreat, I came across a book called "8 steps to a pain-free back" which of course peaked my interest. I browsed through it and placed a hold on a copy of it at the public library. It was my first real introduction to the idea of posture as the cause of my back problems ever since my parents stopped telling me to sit up straight.
There are a lot of books and practices out there based on the idea of body posture and body awareness including the Alexander Technique and a number of posture coaches popping up along the west coast. I initially had tried the Lumo Lift posture coach which is kinda like a dog collar that buzzes you if you lean forward too much, but I felt like it didn't really help too much. Also people kept asking me why I was buzzing so much.
The idea of posture as the root cause of a lot of our spinal maladies made sense to me because back pain just doesn't happen in other places as commonly as it happens here and it probably has something to do with what we spend most of our day doing, sitting and standing and walking, and less to do with the 30 minutes of stretching and exercising a few times a week. And it probably matches up with the type of work we do, the chairs we use, the cars we drive, the commutes we have, and especially the computers and handheld devices most of use. Focusing on posture is something you can do all day, on your own, anywhere, for free, and its much more rewarding when you can appreciate a reason for doing it - that it makes you FEEL better.
While I am reluctant to recommend any one thing in particular and try to avoid too much commercial bias, I will say that I ended up buying the "8 Steps" book and liking it so much that I took a full course with an instructor who taught the Ghokale Method to make sure I was getting it right. I will say that it has really worked for me. While it's easy to fall out of good posture, I spend enough time sitting and standing that it's always easy for me to become aware when I'm slipping and correct things and I can feel the difference very quickly.
I would encourage any of you who have issues with back or neck pain to look into some sort of evaluation or self-check on your posture. I'd say start with a library book or a browse online. Check out the article at the top I linked to and think about reading up more on The Alexander Technique or the Ghokale Method (here's an older article about it) and please let me know any other good places you find. Given the prices, I'd recommend doing some reading or checking out a book or some online videos first, but sometimes the hands on approach really does help.