Does Wearing the Right Bra Help You Combat Back Pain?

One of the most commonly discussed topics among fashion experts, cosmeticians, and health enthusiasts is - does wearing the right bra help combat back pain in women? The answer is, yes and…a little bit of no. 

Why the Doubt?

The fashion industry, especially the lingerie industry has been fixated on the 2008 statistics of 80% of women wearing the wrong size bra. Surveys and statistics as recent as 2019 have shown a 10% increase in this number! So 90% of women are wearing the wrong size bra. Although the demographic is Western and European women, it is a lens to view the larger problem here - wearing the wrong size bra. Therefore, a lot of campaigns have been run to promote women to buy the correct size bra. Adding the importance of health to wearing the correct bra makes women think and buy. One such health reason mentioned is - wearing the right size bra helps combat back pain.

Back Pain in Women

A common public misconception is that ‘only’ heavy busts lead to back pain in women. Macromastia is the condition of having heavy, disproportionate busts. It is said to cause neck, thoracic spine, and shoulder pain, bust pain, and headaches. While the majority of back pain in women is related to having heavy busts, some are also related to poor posture and obesity. 

Bras and Back Pains

Maintaining a body weight that doesn’t hinder your day-to-day activities is key to a healthy life. Correcting your posture when sitting and standing has to be proactively done - if you don’t want to look like the Hunchback of Notre dame!

How to Help

One of the steps to help correct your posture is wearing the right bra. While there is no evidence connecting bra and posture, wearing the wrong size bra will not provide adequate support to your bust. This in turn will make your bust sag and cause you to hunch more. Therefore poor posture caused by sagging or improperly supported busts tends to cause back discomfort and severe back pain in some women.

By now it would be clear to you that wearing the wrong bra size is not directly correlated to back pain but creates an environment that nurtures back pain in women. What are some of the easiest ways to prevent falling into this environment? How does wearing the right bra help in combating back pain? Let's bust some myths and bust out some easy facts!

• Look for Signs

A woman’s bra is rarely seen in her wardrobe shopping list. This innerwear which plays a major role in providing you a perfect fit into your dresses is often ignored. Shopping for a new bra mostly happens only when they are torn or lost. Wrong bras are worn by women every single day. The first step is to recognize the signs of not wearing the right size bra. 

Uncomfortable pinchings of underwires, misshapen paddings, loose-fittings, bust spillage from cups, and constant readjustments are all signs that you are wearing the wrong size bra. These signs scream that your bra needs to change!

• Figure Out Your Sizing

A woman’s bust size and mass vary throughout her lifetime. Most women are not aware of this. Your bust sizes are heavily influenced by hormonal changes, body fat changes, stages of your reproductive cycle, etc. This is a clear indication that women need to measure their bra sizes often and definitely before making a lingerie purchase.

• Measure, Shop, Wear, Repeat…

Measuring yourself is one of the easiest tasks, ever! Sites offer bra size calculators to easily measure your size. If you are curious about what goes into calculating your bra size, here is a gist of it. 

There are two main sizes to know when deciding to buy a bra - Band size and Bust size.

Band size: Take a measuring tape and turn it towards the Inch side to measure your band size. Now place the beginning of the tape under your bust, exhale, and measure the circumference under your band. This would be your band size. In Shyaway your band size will be indicated in inches and hence mentioned as 32, 34, 36, etc. If your measurements are in the middle, like 28.3, round it off to 29. Rounding off your measurements to the nearest even number will help you find the right size, especially when buying a High support Bra online. 

Bust size: Bust sizes are the indicators of cup sizes. To measure your cup size, wrap the measuring tape over the highest part of your bust (usually the nipple area) and hold the tape in a comfortable position. The tape should not be too tight or too loose. Once properly held, measure the size and round off to the nearest whole number. Suppose you get 31 inches, make it 32 (not 30).

Measuring bust sizes are a bit tricky since sizes vary widely in women. Usually, this highest part is the nipple area in most women but it might vary a little depending on a woman’s natural bust shape. Once you have found the highest part of your bust, it will be easier to measure your bust size.

Now that you have your band size and bust size measurement, you can use the well-known cup Size formula, 

Cup size = Bust Size - Band Size

Every inch difference will denote a cup size. A difference of 1 inch denotes A, a difference of 2 inches denotes B, and so on. Use the table below for reference.