Did you know that it takes at least 26 different muscles to support the human head?
Many of these muscles are tiny stabilizers. Within these muscle are a myriad of nerve pathways. It is no surprise that in such a small space where everything is so tightly packed, all it takes is one thing to malfunction just a little and we have a pain in the neck.
There has been a great increase recently in the number of people dealing with neck pain. Part of the reason why is because as we tilt our head forward to look at our phones, we add anywhere between 10 to 60 extra pounds of weight pulling on all of the muscles of the neck and shoulders, depending on how far we tilt our head . If we look straight down, we might pull the muscles of the neck evenly but we are always slightly turning our head and creating a vector of stress that pulls some muscles tight, while compressing other muscles. The more we do this, the more aggravated some muscles become and nearby nerves become caught in the mess.
What can you do to relieve neck pain?
Whenever a patient complains of neck pain, we immediately want to look at the strength of the shoulders. We suggest having someone observe how you are doing lateral arm raises to see if there is asymmetry between the left and right sides. Do one set of 10 reps for each side.
Next do one set for each side of 10 standing lateral arm rotations. Is one side easier to do than the other? Regularly perform these exercises and try to correct the imbalance if there is one as you want to be relatively strong on both sides.
What is important about being equally strong on both sides? Some of the neck muscles connect into the shoulder area which means the shoulders work to support the neck. The neck itself is made up of many stabilizer muscles and they get support from the shoulders. If the shoulder muscles are weak or weak on one side then that will force the neck muscles to work more and could create a pattern of pain.
Our posture holds the biggest key to relieving neck pain. One of the most valuable lessons I learned is from studying Tai Chi and it is best illustrated from this quote:
“The head is held up as if a string is attached to the sky, like a marionette,…the coccyx is held down as if there is a weight on it….the spine is stretched between the two.” –Professor Cheng Man Ching
We have had patients who were able to relieve a significant amount of their neck pain simply by changing their posture.
What else can you do to relieve neck pain?
Here are a few easy exercises that may help.
Static Back exercise: Lay on the floor with your arms out to a 45 degree angle with hands palms up. Support your legs on a block or on the couch so they are bent at a 90 degree angle. The goal of this exercise is to let the shoulders and upper back relax into a more balanced position. Sit in this position for 5-10 minutes to allow yourself to fully relax.
Static Back exercise: Lay on the floor with your arms out to a 45 degree angle with hands palms up. Support your legs on a block or on the couch so they are bent at a 90 degree angle. The goal of this exercise is to let the shoulders and upper back relax into a more balanced position. Sit in this position for 5-10 minutes to allow yourself to fully relax.
Static Back Reverse Press. Begin in the same position as the previous exercise. Lift your hands off the floor and keep elbows bent and touching the ground. Face your palms toward your feet. Next press your elbows into the ground and squeeze your shoulder blades together and down, hold for a second and release.
How to stop neck pain if the exercises are not enough: Often, people turn turn to massage first. This often helps for a period of time, but the muscle tightness tends to bounce right back and you continue to require massage.
With acupuncture, you achieve lasting and effective results that do not require continual maintenance. There are few methods that can compare to the correct application of acupuncture combined with tuina massage and orthopedic movement. At our clinic, we will look at not only the painful area but also the vector of tightness that is causing the issue. When you look at the injury this way you not only relieve the pain, but also work to flush the area with fresh blood so the injury can fully heal and prevent the injury from reappearing in a short time as it does with other therapies.
As written by - Chinese medicine expert, Jim Eleczko, http://raleighlac.com/what-to-do-for-neck-pain/
Of course making, curcumin rich COTUPEP a part of your daily routine - goes a long way to resolving inflammation..
