Recently, I was interviewed for an article regarding stiff necks and I wanted to share to you about some of the insights I had in this blog. In here you will find what causes stiff neck, how irritated your neck is, and what you can do about it.
What Causes Stiff Neck
Realistically, what might cause a stiff neck is kind of multiple things. If you are someone who is a desk sitter and you are not moving a lot, not having a lot of movement can cause things to feel kind of stiff in your body.
Another thing that can cause the muscles around your neck to feel stiff or tight is actually if you are lacking strength. When you are lacking strength in certain areas, the muscles around your neck might be over compensating by being more active to make up for that loss in strength.
The other thing that could cause a stiff neck is trying a new activity. For example, let’s say that you have to paint a room in your house and it’s not something that you normally do. You may wake up the next day with a stiff neck because you’ve just used muscles that you haven’t really used a lot or because you’ve been in a position of looking up for a long time when you’re not normally in that position.
So, again, there are multiple reasons why a stiff neck could occur. There are ways to help in this situation so that your stiff neck doesn’t continue to perpetuate and you don’t continued to have pain for a longer amount of time for it.
Assess How Irritated Your Neck Is And What You Can Do
When you have a stiff neck, you have to assess first how irritated your neck is. If you are having a difficult time just turning your neck and it is really painful doing that, I suggest moving around the neck joint. You can move your arms and do more flexibility activities through your arms and your mid-back. Moving those areas will slightly move the neck but it won’t do it in a way that creates more pain.
For example, one way that you could help with mobility through your mid-back is to grab a foam roller and have it perpendicular to your spine and kind of roll through your mid-back area with your hands behind your head. By rolling through that area, it is stimulating the nervous system and bringing blood flow to the area and then also help with the mobility through your neck.
When a muscle is super, super irritated, I like to do things away from that muscle initially to bring down that irritation. Then, when the irritation is not quite as bad but the neck is still feeling stiff, you can use things like yoga tune-up balls, a tennis ball, or a small ball to roll along the neck muscles. You don’t have to roll necessarily but use it as a pressure point. Place the yoga tune-up balls in their little bags that they come in or if you are to use tennis balls place them in a sock with a rubber band at the end. Put them behind your neck and lay there while taking deep breaths. Nod your chin up and down, too, to slowly loosen up those muscles around the neck.
If the stiff neck is more on the schneck area, the space between your neck and your shoulder, you can take the yoga tune-up balls or tennis balls and roll them in that spot. You can do this while you are against a wall or use your hands to roll them back and forth depending on how irritated the area is. If you use the wall, it will have more force. If you use your hand, it will have lesser force.
You can also use a Theragun or something similar to it in that area. But if it is super irritated, you probably don’t want to go super hard. It seems counterintuitive because when something is really stiff you would think you want to loosen it up as much as possible. But, it is possible that there is just a certain amount of muscle guarding, which means it tries to protect the area, so if you go too hard on the area, it could have the opposite effect of making it feel stiffer. So, make sure that the pressure makes sense for your body and not take it to such a painful place where you don’t actually want to move your head and neck again.
The other thing that can help with decreasing a stiff neck is heat. Putting heat on your muscles will increase blood flow to the area and increase the elasticity of the muscles and the connective tissues. As those muscles generate a little more mobility, you will be able to turn your head a little bit better and less feeling of stiffness through that area.
Is It A Persistent Thing?
If your stiff necks are more of a persistent thing as in you find yourself perpetually getting stiff necks and it is not just a one-off situation, you definitely want to add strengthening of your shoulder blade muscles. These are the muscles between your shoulder blades.
You can do this by doing things like rows, whether you are bent over or with a theraband standing up and drawing your shoulder blades together. You can also do bent over flies where you lean your chest forward and bring your arms out to a T and then return them reaching back down towards the ground. Focus on the muscles between your shoulder blades and do the work there.
Also, work on strengthening the muscles around the neck. One of the ways I like to do this is incorporating it with the shoulder blades strengthening by doing a chin tuck. Have your neck as long as possible then slightly nod your chin towards your throat. It’s not like shaking your head yes because it is a slight nodding down your chin, which will create more length along your neck and activate all those muscles around the neck to help strengthen it.
By strengthening the shoulder blade muscles, it would take some pressure off of the neck muscles and hopefully decrease any of those muscles from doing too much work and overall decreasing that stiff neck.
One More Thing To Consider If You Are A Desk Sitter
If you are a desk sitter, make sure that your computer screen is at eye level because if this is the case, you will not look down or look up. You are not overusing the muscles in your neck and that can help to decrease the stiffness.
Also, make sure to get up and move throughout the day. If you’ve been sitting for an hour, get yourself up and move. Any increase in the blood flow throughout the body will help decrease general stiffness not just through your neck but through your entire body.
Conclusion
I hope this gave you some perspective on how to help with stiff neck. If you are still experiencing a stiff neck, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram or email us for an appointment!