Everyone experiences neck pain and/or stiffness in their lifetime, and if somebody tells you otherwise, they are lying! Why? So many factors including prolonged positions we go to, sleeping positions, aging, hobbies, and more. Despite everyone getting neck pain at one point or another, there are some people who have it way less frequently than others. Those happy neck people likely do some of these 7 things more.
If you want to keep your neck happy and healthy, these would be my top recommendations:
MOVE MORE. I know this sounds pretty straight-forward, but in all seriousness, you need to move your body more. If you sit or stand for prolonged periods, every 30 minutes, get up and change your posture, shake your body out, jump around, do headstands. I don’t care. Do something different than what you were just doing for 30 minutes.
ACTIVATE YOUR BACK MORE. Sit up tall with your head over your shoulders and your chin at a 90 deg. angle to your neck. Draw your shoulder blades down and back on your spine. Don’t move your spine when you do this (i.e. pop your chest or low belly out). Hold 3-30s. Release. That’s one. Do 5-10 every hour to every few hours.
STRETCH YOUR NECK GENTLY SOMETIMES. With range of motion, especially in the neck, if you don’t use it, you lose it. Next thing you know, you’re 80 years old, and you don’t know why you can only bend your head an inch to the side. Consider stretching the sides of your neck more. All you do is sit up tall with your head over your shoulders and chin at a 90 deg. angle to your neck. Drop your right ear to your right shoulder, letting gravity pull the weight of the head down. Feel a stretch on the left side of the neck. Hold 20-30s. Repeat on the other side.
STRENGTHEN YOUR SHOULDERS. Work on your shoulders sometimes! Specifically, consider adding in endurance-based activities for the shoulders. This means lower weight and high reps (2-3 sets of 12-30 reps). With whatever exercise you choose, focus on keeping good postural alignment (as described twice above). Examples could be bicep curls, fly variations, push ups, and more.
THINK ABOUT POSTURE MORE. Just an itty bitty bit more than you usually do can make a difference. This doesn’t mean hold amazing posture all day. This means start becoming more aware of correcting your posture in small increments. There is really no such thing as perfect posture since we all have different bodies, but there are alignments that are generally better than others when sitting and standing. Think of the correct alignment for #2 and #3 exercises. Is your ear in line with your shoulder? Is your chin at that 90 deg. angle? How far forward are your shoulders?
LISTEN TO YOUR NECK. When you are in a position for a few seconds, and the neck aches a little, that’s fine. When it keeps aching and aching, and you keep thinking it’s going to go away, it’s not. You need to move. Simply listen to your body more.
SLEEP HOWEVER YOU WANT. UNLESS YOU WAKE UP CONSTANTLY WITH NECK PAIN. I’m a big believer that getting sleep in your favorite position is more important than aligning every vertebrae perfectly in your neck. Because if you get appropriate sleep, your cortisol levels are going to be better, and you won’t be a crab the next day. You’re going to feel better in general. However, if you’re a tummy sleeper and you keep waking up one time/week with a “crick” in your neck, time to change. The position is likely correlated and a causation.
These 7 tips are some of many recommendations to prevent neck pain. If you want more advice, feel free to email me at brookecarmen@wholebodyhealthpt.com. If you have neck pain, getting an evaluation in person with a physical therapist is recommended. Call us at 503-223-1856 to set up an appointment. Happy necks, everyone!