You've been under a lot of stress lately and your body is screaming for you to stop. You've ignored it for weeks and suddenly one morning, your neck is kinked up and your shoulders exhibit rock-like knots in their muscles. You make your way painfully to work and assume a vulture-like position in front of your keyboard. A little exercise would have kept this from happening. However, it's not too late to do something to relieve the pain and tension.
Stretches
Like any other muscle group, your neck and shoulder muscles need gentle stretching and warming up before exercise. Some gentle yoga exercises are good for this.
Begin by moving your facial muscles and making funny rubbery faces, preferably in a private space where innocent bystanders won't be sent into spontaneous fits of laughter. To prevent any straining of your neck muscles, pull your lower lip over your upper lip, then turn your head slowly from from side to side.
If you make yourself laugh, just shrug it off.
Exercises
Actually, shrugging is a good way to relieve tension in the neck and shoulder muscles. Do it several times but do it gently.
If you're harboring guilt of some sort and feel the need to punish yourself, go stand in the corner. Now take two steps to the left so you're facing the wall and standing a few inches away from it. Pretend you're a villain and a policeman tells you to "stick'um up," only you use just your left hand. With your palm facing the wall, your elbow bent, and your hand about level with your ear, gently push against the wall while turning your body to the right. Push just hard enough to feel a nice stretch throughout your upper body. Repeat for your right side.
Now turn around and lightly balance your back and head against the wall. For this exercise, it's important to maintain good head and body alignment for full benefit. Let the wall be your guide. Reach behind you as though you were picking your own left back pocket with your left hand. Slide your right hand down the outside of your right thigh, breathing deeply, evenly, and steadily. As always, the stretch should be smooth and gentle. Feel the muscles of your body stretch and relax. Now repeat on the other side.
Prevention
We all develop some bad habits when it comes to our posture. Many of us make our living sitting in front of a computer monitor, encouraging slumping and slouching. No wonder our shoulders and necks hurt.
Prevention is the first step in avoiding shoulder and neck pain. Keeping the muscles nice and relaxed will help, especially if you take periodic stretch breaks and use the exercises above. Additionally, imagine a wire is attached to the top of your head as though you were a puppet on a string. Depending on your work environment, this may not be hard to visualize. Imagine your body's position if someone were holding the wire straight during the workday. Your head, neck, shoulders, back, and lower body would all tend to be in a straight line. That's the posture you want to keep.
Tags: your body, your left, your neck, your right, against wall, facing wall, left hand