Neck Pain-Look AT your computer not INTO it
Neck Pain-Look AT your computer not INTO it
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/
2 Comments
Rick Olderman
CommentIn my experience as a physical therapist, most headaches and neck pain are due to the shoulder blades sitting too low on the trunk. I know this may sound odd but, to put it simply, there are muscles attaching from the shoulder blade directly to the first four neck vertebrae and skull. When the shoulders sit too low, these muscles then pull on the neck bones and skull causing neck pain and headaches.
Here’s a quick, simple test to see if this is a contributing cause of your headaches. If you’re having right-sided neck pain or headaches, raise your right hand and place it flat on top of your head for 20 seconds. Make sure your head doesn’t side-bend or rotate to achieve this. If your pain diminished after this test, then your scapula may be sitting too low causing your discomfort. This is easily correctable. This is also the culprit in diagnoses such as thoracic outlet syndrome and carpal tunnel syndrome. I’ve just written a book about fixing neck pain and headaches using an approach based on this mechanical connection to the shoulder and neck. It has been very effective over the last few years and I think is worth a try if you haven’t found the answers you are seeking.
I’ve also posted this and another test on YouTube, if you’re interested.
The Importance of Good Posture | Treating Arthritis
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