Sitting & Neck Pain
Are your neck and shoulders tight and tense at the end of a long day?
Poor Seated Posture...
Sitting for too long combined with the stress and frustrations that may come with a typical work day often lead to tense upper back, neck and shoulder pain. Poor neck posture makes us look like we’ve had a long day and our neck muscles feel that way too. Furthermore our stress increases the tightness and tension we feel in these areas. Checking in with your own posture throughout the day is incredibly important and the beginning of making long term changes.
What’s the Problem?
As we sit, our chest muscles become short and tight while our upper back and posterior neck muscles become long and weak. Your chin juts forward and your shoulders round and collapse closer to the keyboard. This posture results in neck and shoulder pain/tightness, headaches and even jaw discomfort.
Stretch it Out…
To combat this forward head carriage and anterior rounded shoulders try doing these chin tucks repeatedly throughout the workday. You can use pain as your guideline and do 10 repetitions every time you feel discomfort in your neck. To perform, sit up tall roll your shoulders up towards your ears then drop them down and back pulling your shoulder blades together. From this position place two fingers gently on your chin and retract your head backwards until your ears sit over your shoulders.
Roll it out…
Use a tennis or lacrosse ball to do some self massage of your upper back and neck muscles. Place the ball between or above your shoulder blades to start. Slowly scan your muscles by moving side to side up and down while leaning your body weight into the ball to your comfort level. When you find a sore or painful spot, stop and hold pressure on that area till the pain lets up, a few seconds. Then return to your scan and repeat the hold on any tight spots you find.