If you are sitting poorly, standing poorly or doing you daily activities using poor bio-mechanics you will be injuring your neck time and time again. When a person is sitting slouched with the chin jutting forwards they are continually straining the ligaments. The ligaments surround the joints and are responsible for supporting the discs that lay between the vertebrae. After prolonged poor postural habits the ligaments can actually tear. This can then cause pain and if the person continues to have poor posture the ligaments will not heal properly. If good posture is performed this give the ligaments a chance to heal. Think of cutting your elbow, if you continue to bend your elbow you continue to re-injure your cut and the elbow doesn’t heal. However, if you stop bending your elbow, the cut will have a chance to heal and will get better quickly. This is the same with your ligaments of your neck, stop slouching putting your neck into a forward position and your ligaments get a chance to heal finally- thus removing your pain. If you damage your ligaments further though, they can lose the ability to hold your disc in place and the disc may eventually bulge and can press on spinal nerves causing pain or numbness or pins and needles in the shoulders, arms or hand. The good news is that this too can be helped using some specific exercises and adhering to good postural habits. The exercises will fast track your healing by re-aligning the disc and taking pressure off the ligaments to allow them to heal.

Let’s look at the example of a person at a computer. You will see this all day every day, the person is sitting with their head protracted (pushed forwards). In other words, if you were to hang a plumb bob (piece of string with a weight on the end) from their chin it would hit the floor. Their head is too far forward. This then puts the lower neck into a position of flexion. From years of poor posture certain muscles will also chronically shorten causing more pain and dysfunction. This can cause more pain and be a mojor cause of headaches. Imagine you have a balloon between your hands with one hand above the other. Your hands represent the vertebrae and the balloon is your disc. If you put pressure through the heels of your hands, the balloon will be forced out through your fingertips. If you press through your fingertips the balloon will be forced back out the opposite way through your heels. This is what is happening when you are sitting with your head in a forward position. You are continually injuring your neck, your lower vertebrae are flexed and are pushing your disc backwards. By reversing this, you allow your neck to heal, reposition the disc, and remove your pain.

TIP: Remember to look AT the computer not INTO the computer

Taken from: http://neckpainexercises.com/2010/02/neck-pain-look-at-your-computer-not-into-it/

I mean it- I’ve dealt with headaches my entire adult life and I haven’t found anything yet that helps as consistently and regularly as yoga for relieving and preventing headaches.

Many headaches are caused by tension- life gets stressful, your muscles tighten up in your neck and shoulders and the next thing you know- BOOM< BOOM< BOOM – you’re got a headache that just won’t let up! You grab the Excedrin, the aspirin, the Motrin- but nothing comes close to the throbbing. If you’re like me and the muscle pain isn’t abated, you wind up in bed with a migraine for the next two days. If you’ve ever suffered from a migraine, you know the drill: lights, sounds, smells, movement- any and all of these triggers will cause excruciating pain, dizziness and nausea. You’re not going anywhere now, until the headache runs its course.

So how can yoga help with headaches/ Simple- according to Dr. Tomas Brofeldt, M.D. at the University of California’s Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, CA, as many as 75 % of all headaches stem from muscle tension in the back of the neck and are related to poor posture.
Many of us, and particularly those who tend to suffer frequent headaches, tend to hold our heads too far forward. This is especially true in people with rounded shoulders.

Because the muscles in the neck and the upper back are not held in proper alignment, they become overworked and fatigued. This fatigue can lead to a muscle spasm, much like a charlie horse in the calf of your leg. The muscle spasm causes constriction of the blood vessels, which is what causes your headache. If the muscle spasm isn’t relieved, the lack of blood flow begins to starve the muscle cells, which will cause certain chemicals to be released to force the blood vessels open. This is the point where you headache becomes a migraine. The pain and accompanying nausea and sensitivity to light and sound will eventually force your body to fall into a deep stage of sleep called “delta sleep.” Delta sleep is a deep state of total relaxation, which allows the muscles to relax and resume proper blood flow and nutrition to the cells.

Just as we need to stretch out the calf muscles when we get a charlie horse in our leg, we also need to stretch out the muscles in our upper back and neck to relieve the muscle strain there. Learning to hold our head and neck in proper alignment will prevent the muscle strain that leads to frequent headaches and migraines. Yoga is all about stretching the muscles and holding our bodies in proper alignment, making it an ideal solution for this problem. The best postures are those that open up the chest, roll back the shoulders and keep the head on the midline. While these positions are important throughout your yoga routine, one posture that is particularly well suited to help with this is the Downward Facing Dog pose, which we discussed before.

Another pose that can be beneficial to stretching those “headache muscles” is the Bridge Pose. Lie on your back and use a folded blanket under your shoulders for support, if needed. Bend your knees and put your feet on the floor. Your heels should be as close to your hips as possible. Exhale and press the insides of your feet and your arms deep into the floor as you push your tailbone up toward the pelvis and tighten your bottom as you lift it up off the floor. Now clasp your hands together underneath your pelvis and extend through your arms. Lift your bottom up until your thighs are parallel with the floor. Your knees should be directly over your heels, but push them forward- away from your hips. Lengthen out your tailbone toward the back of your knees and lift your pubis toward the belly button.

Lift your chin away from your sternum and tighten up the shoulder blades against your back. Now press your sternum up toward the chin, firm up your outer arms, let your shoulder blades broaden and try to lift the space between your shoulder blades up into the torso. Hold for 30 seconds to a minute. Exhale as you release and return to the floor.

This sounds a bit complicated, but it really isn’t. It gives you a great stretch in your shoulder blades, chest, neck and spine. It calms your brain and helps reduce your headache. Practicing both the Bridge Pose and Downward Facing Dog on a regular basis can help keep the chest, back and neck areas aligned and stretched, which will help avoid those nasty headaches in the first place.

Taken from: http://www.yogaflavoredlife.com/styles-poses/this-stuffs-better-drugs.html

The pain from headaches and neck pain can range from bothersome to excruciating. If you are experiencing headaches or neck pain, it is always a good idea to see a doctor to make sure that you do not have a serious condition.

Stretching can help to relieve headaches and neck pain. Even if you do not have any pain, stretches can help prevent headaches and neck pain.

Doing these four stretches only takes a few minutes and are great way to start out your day. A warm towel can be held around the back of the neck for extra pain relief.

All of these stretches can be done from either a sitting or standing position. Make sure to have straight posture when performing these stretches. Use slow and deliberate movements when doing the following stretches.

Repeat each of the following stretches three to five times.

1) Start with your head pointed forward. Slowly turn your head to the left and hold for a few seconds. Slowly turn your head back to the starting position and hold for a few seconds. Slowly turn your head to the right and hold for a few seconds. Bring your head back to the starting position.

2) Start with your head pointed forward. Slowly tilt your head back so that you are looking up and hold for a few seconds. Slowly bring your head back to the starting position.. Tilt your head down so that your are looking down and hold for a few seconds. Bring your head back to the starting position.

3) Start with your head pointed forward. Slowly bend your head to the left side so that your left ear is pointing towards your left shoulder and hold for a few seconds. Bring your head back to the starting position. Slowly bend your head to the right side so that your right ear is pointing towards your right shoulder and hold for a few seconds. Bring your head back to the starting position.

4) Looking straight ahead and making sure to have straight posture, slowly bring your shoulders up towards your ears and hold for a few seconds. Slowly bring your shoulders back down.

Taken from: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/773215/four_stretches_to_relieve_headaches_pg2_pg2.html?cat=5