I am averse to medication unless necessary and I took one painkiller in the morning so that I could work and a muscle relaxant in the afternoon to alleviate the spasm. That night I slept with propped up pillows and the problem regressed by more than 80%. Today I have a residual mild stiffness, which I am sure, will go away by tomorrow.

A white collar condition, hmmm!

Yesterday I put my daily routine through the microscope.

6.00AM: Wake up
6.30AM: Drive to work
7.00AM: At work. Continuously standing or sitting, more than 50% of the times on the computer. Multi-tasking all the time.
1.15PM: Break for a 15-minute lunch.
1.30PM: Back to work.
2.30PM: Put my head on the desk, lock the room and nap for 15 minutes.
2.45PM: Back to work.
5.30PM: Drive back home.
6.30PM: With the twins.
8.30PM: "Friends", showing daily on our local channel.
8.30PM: Dinner.
9.00PM: Start getting physically tired, but can't sleep because of the kids or conversation with family or multiple phone calls.
11.00PM: Sleep. Hopefully no disturbance by emergency calls.

Saturday: Same routine, but home early, hopefully by 4.00PM. Try to get some writing done in the evening.

Sunday: Hopefully no travel, work, symposium or seminar. Spend time with the twins and the rest of the family. Try to get some more writing done.

What do I see here? A completely sedentary life-style with no physical exercise. Last year, I had started a 30-minutes brisk-walking schedule at around 6.00 in the morning; in those days, I used to leave for work at around 7.30AM. But something came up and the schedule disintegrated and now for over a year I haven't had any regular physical exertion.

The only thing I have done is to change my food habits. Around eight months ago, I switched to a 70-30, "Fit for Life" diet, that has made me feel healthier and more in control. The 70-30 rule basically says that 70% of the times you should follow the diet and 30% of the times you can do what you want. As part of the diet, I have only fruits till lunch. At lunchtime, the health-food people send a "tiffin", which contains a full lunch with minimal salt, sugar, refined flour (maida), oil and no milk. I have coconut water at 4.00PM. For dinner I can have what I want - so I pig out on whatever is cooked at home accompanied by at least one bar of chocolate. I have completely given up tea and coffee, except on weekends, when I have these as special treats. I have given up my standard breakfast of cereal and milk and I have almost completely stopped milk and milk products.

I remember having a perpetual cold ever since I was a child. In the last eight months, I have had a runny nose only once and that too when I actually picked up a virus. I don't know whether it's the milk (the lack of) or the fruits or the entire diet itself, but just this one fact has made me completely devoted to this new food habit.

I know I am rambling, but there is a point here. I need to cut down my working hours, find some time for exercise and continue with my health food regime. That is the only way I will be able to stay fit and hope to live another 50 years to enjoy the amazing world that we have today.

And hope to be able to be around when my kids hopefully have theirs.

I feel wonderful. I have the energy of a longshoreman first in line at Starbucks. I have been outside for a good portion of the day, working until it (finally!) got dark. And I do mean working: digging and raking and sweeping and pruning and lifting and hauling and bending and ...

... and you know what? My back can take it. My back doesn't kick out on me anymore. My back is flexible and friendly and I can tell you how you, too, can have such a backbone for your very own. I know the secret and I know the truth. And, as a World Year exclusive, I will share my hard-gained knowledge so that you will not have to suffer like my poor buddy, The Man (With White-Collar Pain).

You see, a few years ago I was nearly crippled with lower-back pain. I think I must have caught a cold that maybe migrated to my kidneys and then my poor back began to tense up in sympathy. In no time at all, I was unable to get out of a chair or a car or out of bed unassisted. Someone had to literally pull me up. Or, I had to roll, painfully, and push up. Many people with hurt backs know what I'm talking about here.

It just got worse and worse and worse. Now, since my husband and I both work on a freelance basis, there is no health insurance to speak of. This means, practically speaking, that if you are in pain, you go to the bookstore. You lean against the shelves, if need be, and you start a search for some clues to your condition. I've done this sort of self-diagnosis for years, and it's been quite successful. You'd be surprised how much can go wrong with the human body until you start to look it up in a handy Merks Manual.

Painfully endured research soon told me that there were also countless things that could go wrong with our beautiful, delicate backbone. There are disks involved, and muscles, clear fluid, and heredity. You could end up with an operation to try to correct the problem. They pull those disks out and replace them with plastic and probably spray the whole thing with the natural equivalent of WD-40 while they're in there.

Very expensive. And painful. And you know what?

I noticed by doing some extensive reading that no matter what treatment method you ended up enduring, at some point in time, the doctor will turn to you and say this word: exercise. Yeoww. Exercise. No matter how fragile your back, you're going to have to learn how to move it again.

So I reasoned thusly: if exercise is at the end of any road, why not give it a try? Makes sense, right? And here is the one and only exercise you ever need to do if you want a wonderful back again: sissy sit-ups. Not just any sit-ups: sissy sit-ups. Here's what you do: you lie down on your nice, comfy bed. You throw your hands over your head, stretching your arms all the way out. You use your hands and arms to swing yourself up and you go up up, up ... and bend over as far as you can. That's it.

You can graduate to manly crunches if you feel up to it, but if your back is hurting, you want to stretch and warm and encourage all the muscles that help support your back. The long, simple stretch, helped in good measure by your heavy hands and the counter-swing of your arms, seems to do the trick.

It truly works. Try to do just a few to start, and then more and more. It's a miracle.

Are you listening, Mr. Man?