Neck pain is the most common problem now a days in which Neck muscles get stiff and restricted movement of neck is seen because of prolonged stationary position of neck or text neck, due to long work hours overs computer or slouching over the workstation.
Causes:
Muscle strains. Overuse, like long hours of slouching over computer or smartphone, often triggers muscle strains. Even little actions, such as reading in bed can strain neck muscles.
Worn joints like other joints in body, our neck joints tend to age. Your body forms bone spurs with ageing that affect joint mobility and cause pain. Nerve compression. Bulging disc or bone spurs in the vertebrae of neck can put stress on the nerves coming out from the spinal cord. Injuries. Road-traffic collisions often leads to whiplash injury, which happens when the head is hit back on seat and front on dashboard, straining the soft tissues of the neck.
Common Neck Pain Signs and Symptoms
Neck stiffness feeling of tightness and turning side to side becomes difficult. Pain may be just at a particular point and give you the felling of stabbing or stinging such pains are generally seen the lower neck. Soreness. Certain irritation is typically felt in a larger area of the neck. It may be disturbing but not very sharp and pinching. Travelling pain, the sensation of the different intensity of pain traveling along the arm towards the wrist or in the fingers. With increasing symptoms, it becomes difficulty to sleep, basic activities of daily living become a major task to be done.
Prevention
Use good posture. When standing or sitting, check for your shoulders, they should be in a straight line over the level of hips and the ears are directly placed over your shoulders. Frequent breaks After a duration of 30-45 mints of continuous activity, leave your chair, take a walk, and do your stretches of neck and shoulders. Adjust your workstation, chair, and screen so that the monitor is at eye level along with neck at 90. Knees should be slightly lower than hip level. Hands should be supported at armrests. Correct phone holding Instead of holding the phone between the ear and shoulder make use of earphones and smart gadgets Slight modifications in weights can have major impact on straining of neck muscles like reducing the weights in bag packs or equal distribution over both shoulders Sleeping posture use of mild height pillow is always recommend maintaining the alignment of vertebrae.
Self-Care for Neck Pain
Short period of rest. The activities leading to increase in pain shall be avoided during the acute attack of pain, but mild movement shall be continued to prevent muscle wasting. Ice and/or heat. Application of ice generally helps to reduce swelling and pain. Whereas Application of heat may help muscle relaxation and gets more blood flow which promotes healing. For ice or heat therapy, applications are supposed to be for 15 or 20 minutes with at least a 2–4-hour break in between for the skin time to recover. Gentle stretches Certain mild within available range of motion stretches should be performed if they are increasing the pain then they should be stopped.
Exercises:
1) Neck Isometrics: To start with, sit on a chair with feet flat over the floor in comfortable position. Relax your shoulders and keep the head in neutral level.
- Keep your hand over forehead put pressure against your neck muscles and your hand. Hold for 10 seconds. Repeat 5-7 times.
- Continues the same as above in all directions as mentioned in point 1. Repeat 5-7 times on each side
2. Chin Tuck
This exercise can be performed in any comfortable position standing or sitting. Sit straight with ears directly placed over the ears looking straight at eye level. Keep a finger on the chin. The chin needs to be moved in forward and backwards directions to feel the stretch Repeat for a total of 5-10 times, or as tolerated.
