Pain in the neck

Last weekend, I slept for a lifetime, recovering from or as a consequence of jetlag. Maybe all that lolling my head about during a three-flight journey home set the scene - as I woke from that long slumber on Sunday morning, I felt a crick in my neck.

Moving tentatively with the spasm, I did what any good doctor would tell me to do - I tanked myself up on painkillers, took a sip from an opportune bottle of Bucks Fizz chilling in the fridge and went about my business. The drugs and sip of sweet drink were really to prep my neck for a dose of the real medicine to come - gentle, steady movement.

The universe provides. The following day, I looked forward to joining a yoga class despite still manoeuvring slightly like a robot carrying my easing torticollis. It was a gentle class full of neck stretching, strength and mobility — just what I needed.

How does yoga provide just what you need at the right time?

Text Neck / Tech Neck

I’ve always been told I have a long neck. A potential problem with a long neck is that on top of it sits a very heavy object, the approximate size and weight of a small bowling ball.

An osteopath once told me that my recurrent neck pain… headaches… upper back pain…and maybe even lower back pain were probably due to how I held my head for the best part of eight hours a day. He figured it was down to a combination of forward head posture at the computer for half the day and a sympathetic yet awkward patient-facing head tilt (a mandatory pose for a GP) for the other half. And text neck position adopted during any spare moments of the day. Oh, and a sprinkling of that little thing called stress. I think he was spot on.

The forward head posture is thought to exert uneven and chronic force on the neck spine and intervertebral discs. Back and shoulder muscles reflexly tighten up to support the pulling load of the head (presumably in a sincere attempt to stop your head from falling off), creating unpleasant tension that eventually radiates not-so-delightfully around the whole body.

Many of us unknowingly migrate to that unflattering posture, even when we think we are pretty upright. I once saw a picture of myself someone had taken in profile when I was sitting in meditation and was horrified —my head could have been in a different time zone from the rest of my body.

While I’m here, if you can relate to any of this and tend to be afflicted with occasional neck pain, these are some of the links and exercises I send my patients in case they are useful. They are good if you can be bothered to do them diligently!

https://www.versusarthritis.org/media/21788/neckpain-exercise-sheet.pdf

https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/muscle-bone-and-joints/exercises/exercises-for-neck-problems

Dr Sarah Jarvis on Neck Pain, Youtube

Where’s my Head?

I must confess I’m more than a bit impatient and get bored with the aforementioned physio exercises. I’d rather do yoga 😛

And why not? With so much emphasis on the spine, Asana gives us opportunities to sense, move, and strengthen the neck and support the head in a better posture time and again. Creatively, we can incorporate much of what physio asks us to do into our yoga practice. In fact, if we practise mindfully, many of the poses already inherently improve the flexibility and strength of the neck and shoulder girdle beautifully.

So, let’s start with awareness. Where’s your head right now? I invite you to close your eyes and softly stack your head atop your spine. Maybe draw your chin back a little to begin. As you slide the shoulders back and down, sense the skin of the back flowing down from the base of the neck and feel upward traction as your neck grows long, the crown of the head reaching up to the sky.

Feeling better already.

Let’s practise.