Top Tips for Neck Pain

Neck pain is extremely common affecting 50 – 70% of people at some point in their lives. Fortunately, following these simple tips for neck pain can help to speed up your recovery, or even prevent you getting neck pain altogether.

Mid-Back Mojo

Many patients with neck pain have a very stiff or rounded mid-back. This is very important to address as mobility through the mid-back is key in allowing the neck and shoulders to move well. Try this simple test to see how well your mid-back is moving.  A good exercise to help improve mid-back mobility and thereby reduce the strain on your neck and shoulders is described below.

Kneeling Extensions

• Kneel on the floor with your buttocks back towards your knees and arms outstretched. Hands can be placed on the floor, on a chair, or on a foam roll.
• First, round your back up and breathe in.
• Then, as you breathe out, let your chest fall towards the floor in an arch shape.
• You should `feel’ this in your mid-back and shoulders especially when you let your back fall to the floor.
• If you feel it more in the lower back, spread the knee a little further apart and move your hips further back towards your heels.

Sitting

One of the main reasons neck pain patients have a stiff middle back in the first place is from too much sitting, particularly in a slumped or rounded position. This rounded positon places a large stain on the joints and muscles of the neck. To prevent this, sit back into the chair and place a support or lumber roll just above your belt line. This will shift your pelvic position, restoring your natural low-back curve and automatically improving your mid-back and neck posture!

But, even with a better postural position sitting for long periods will still stiffen your neck and slow your recovery.  Get up every 20-30 minutes to walk, stretch or perform any of these micobreak exercises.  

Walking

Walking is a great anecdote for those with neck pain. Walking with upright posture and swinging the arms from the shoulders will gently keep the neck moving. When walking the chest moves around the head vs moving the head on the shoulders which means walking is generally well tolerated even in acute neck complaints. Opt for walking whenever you have the opportunity – take the stairs instead of the lift, park a little further away or even leave the car at home altogether!

Breathing

When relaxed, the normal breathing pattern is for the stomach and lower ribs to expand (belly breath -see image). However, often in patients with neck pain this normal breathing pattern has been disturbed. Instead of the stomach and lower ribs expanding, the neck and shoulders muscles compensate to lift the chest straight up (chest breathing). This puts a lot of stress on the joints and muscles of the neck and is a common factor in headaches and neck pain. For full recovery from neck injuries it is therefore very important to retrain this pattern. A good starting point for this is the rainbow breathing exercise. Learn more here.

Related articles

• Neck Pain Conditions
• Shoulder Pain
• Tennis elbow

Images

• Liebenson. C., Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies
• Functional postural-stabilization tests according to Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization approach: Proposal of novel examination protocol

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‘Top Tips for Neck Pain’ was written by Steffen Toates. Steffen is a chiropractor at Dynamic Health Chiropractic in Jersey, Channel Islands. For more infomation about Steffen click here.

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