If you have neck pain, I wouldn’t blame you for being scared of going to most doctors or a chiropractor.
They might give you cat scans, MRIs and X-rays… cortisone shots, anti-inflammatory painkillers, electrical stimulation… not to mention violent alignment “adjustments” or invasive surgery…
And even with that kind of conventional therapy, the pain tends to persist.
It’s a shame because in most cases, healing the cause of the pain instead of treating the symptoms will help you lose the neck pain forever.
The symptoms usually start with a muscular imbalance that, over time, puts a strain on your spine.
Two things can happen at this point.
The strain on your spine could be enough that your body recognizes it as an injury and locks up the muscles in that area to prevent damage.
Or, your muscles are barely able to handle the stress on your spine, but one little event puts you over the top. You overextend your stronger muscles, or overuse your weaker ones, and you end up with a mild injury.
In either case, your neck becomes inflamed, and the inflammatory agents make you sensitive to movement. This makes normal motion like simply turning your head very painful.
To fix this problem and keep it from returning, you want to address those muscle imbalances. The best way to do this is to slowly strengthen and stretch until your neck muscles are more powerful, balanced and strain-resistant.
Here are four easy exercises you can do right now to relieve your neck pain:
1. Side Neck Stretch with Resistance – Reach one hand over the opposite side of your head, and hold with your fingers just above the ear. Gently pull your head toward your raised arm until you feel a stretch in your neck muscles. To strengthen, push back with your head as you pull with your hand. Hold for 15-30 seconds and repeat 3 times.
2. Chin Tuck – Stand or lie down with both hands by your sides. With your head in a neutral position, push slowly forward and down, trying to press your chin into your chest. Hold the stretch for 15 seconds. If you’re standing, slowly lifting your head back to neutral will strengthen the muscles at the same time you stretch them.
3. Head Retraction – This is designed to improve the strength of muscles at the base of the neck. Glide your head straight back, lifting your chin, and hold for 15 seconds. Repeat 3-5 times. Lifting slowly will give those muscles more strength as well.
4. Neck Press with Resistance – For a little more rigorous exercise, clasp your fingers behind your head, elbows out to the sides. Slowly pull forward on your head, while resisting with your neck. Do this for 10 seconds at a time, and repeat up to three times.
If you already have neck pain, stretching and strengthening will resolve most of your symptoms in three or four days, but it can take more than a week for every ache and pain to completely disappear. And if you do these exercises for 5 or 10 minutes a day, you’ll prevent neck strain, “sleeping wrong” and many sports injuries.
Sometimes, though, these exercises won’t be enough. For a customized neck pain remedy, I recommend you try a solution developed by top fitness trainer and co-founder of the Healthy Back Institute Jesse Cannone, along with Dr. Brian Paris, a noted neck pain specialist.
They’ve created a series of specially designed exercises, stretches and pain reduction strategies you also can do in your own home. They are designed to help your neck regain a wide range of motion and heal nagging pain. It only takes a few minutes a day, and more than nine out of 10 people report positive results.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD
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