Three Neck Pain Relief Exercises | Upper Cervical Chiropractor for Neck Pain in Mt. Dora, FL
Thanks for joining us again for some more of our tips! This one has three neck pain relief exercises you can do at your desk to alleviate discomfort and tightness.
Protraction and Retraction
The first one is Protraction and Retraction. So really simple, what do you tend to do? What’s your posture at the desk, right? You tend to let your head go towards the screen, your arms are rolling forward to the keypad, and we’re kind of get bunched up. So what you want to do is, sit back in your chair, get nice posture, and you’re simply going to be pushing that head forward, and bringing it right back. That is the protraction and retraction. As you’re doing all of these, just think about breathing, think about relaxing. Just stop your work for a minute or so and just back and out. Okay, so not only will you be getting motion in the joints, getting some mobility, some fluid to the joints, but now you’re also just reducing the stress.
Rotation Exercises
The next one, really simply, is just rotation. So again, nice, good posture sitting up on your chair, or better yet, get out of your chair. So just for a minute, get your legs and hips moving and then just get some motion back into the spine. Because you’ve been glued to your computer for however long, maybe even hours, try to get 10 each side. And again, nice deep breathing, as you’re going to get some mobility and some blood flow back into those joints.
The Chest Opener
Then the chest-openers, this is my favorite. So again, you’ve been like this down at the computer. So you want to start opening this up. Here your hands are rotated forward in front of the keyboard, we’re going to do the opposite, we’re going to open up the hands. Imagine you’re doing a W with your arms and you’re going to breathe in. Pull those shoulders back, thumbs back too. Then as you exhale, bring those shoulders forward and just do 10 of those. not only is that going to help reduce pain and stress in your neck and, but it’s also just going to help reinvigorate you by oxygenating.
Workplace Ergonomics
Now I just want to briefly discuss ergonomics at your desk. Ideally, you may or may not have control over this, depending on where you work. If you work from home, no brainer, you have complete control. If you work at a company, maybe talk to your manager or the business owner, if you can get a standing or versatile desk so you can have a choice to sit or stand. Generally speaking, standing is going to be better because you can just move, you’re already on your feet. This is much better for you than just sitting. Sitting is very and sitting actually loads your spine 33% More than standing does. So if you can get a convertible desk, so if your feet get tired after a while, you can sit for a little bit, that is another option. The option of standing is going to be really important with your ergonomics as you want to fix your monitor.
Body Positioning
So if you’re looking straight ahead with good posture, you’re looking at the bottom third of your monitor. Okay, if you’re having to look down at your screen, we’re off to a bad start. And then secondarily, you don’t want your keyboard too high, because your arm elbow and wrists are going to be poor ergonomics, right. So you want to be where you’re just level. So if you just put your arms to your side, arms out at 90 degrees here, that’s where your keyboard should end up. But when you start adding up the hours, the days weeks, months or years, those ergonomics make a huge difference. It’s called repetitive strain injury or micro trauma. Okay, so start with your ergonomics and make sure you take a break every 30 to 45 minutes.
Do these exercises and some deep breathing to get rejuvenated and you’ll feel better!
