STOP what you’re doing right now.
Check your chin! How far is it sticking forward?
Do you regularly have pain, stiffness or a locked-up neck? Can’t look over your shoulder when changing lanes? Get headaches often perhaps? Find out what tight neck muscles have to do with it and how remedial massage can help you can get rid of it.
If you in a high pressured or stressed job our posture often gets compromised by the workload or deadlines we try to reach. Looking down a lot in your day or between two screens puts your neck muscles under constant pressure. The effect is they stay contracted even if you stop working. They are set to protect you as best the body think it can.
Possible Causes
A good set up from your workspace is vital. Laptops and mobiles mobile phones are killers to work on, as you tend to stick your head forward or squint into the screen. Posture is super important. Most headaches or sensations in the arm are caused by tight neck muscles because we hunched our shoulders forward or stick out our chin reading the screen in front of us. This puts the levator scapulae muscle, running from the back of your skull so you’re the top of your shoulder blade, under constant pull causing stiffness, less flexibility, and pain in the neck.
Another muscle that is a real pain in the neck is a short muscle running from the bottom of your cervical spine to the top of your shoulder blade. It is overworked and underpaid. Usually forgotten in stretching and strengthening routines but the cause for most of my clients’ neck pains.
When you hang your shoulders your upper trapezius muscles are pulled forward and under constant strain. Often resulting in shortening the upper traps over time. The muscles in between your shoulder blades lengthen and weaken in their function of pulling your shoulder back.
Not releasing obstructs the blood flow into the area like the head and the arms. If an area it isn’t receiving enough blood, less oxygen reaches that area and it is harder to remove waste. This gives a feeling of stiffness or pain as the muscle or fascia doesn’t get “flushed out’ and a ‘traffic jam’ occurs. Possibly giving headaches or reduced circulation into the arm can give giving sensations of tingling and numbness to the arm and fingers. Leaving it untreated the muscles stay in a constantly contracted state which could lead to developing more serious conditions as RSI, or could cause muscle weakness and restricted function.
Remedial Massage can help you
With our current computer work, this is a new challenge we have to conquer. Despite all your good efforts, tension may build up and need to be released manually on a regular basis. Depending on your stress levels, the work you do and your personal circumstances you may need weekly, fortnightly or monthly assistance.
Remedial massage can reduce aches and pains, tension or stiffness increases the range of movement and can improve posture.
A qualified remedial massage therapist is trained to assess your range of movement, palpate the soft tissue and understand from those tests which muscle they need to release. By applying pressure to muscle they release the contracted state and return your muscles to relax. To not have your body pull up his proactive shield when it thinks your harmed, gentler pressure may be more effective. Lengthening the muscle with passive stretching or mobilize the neck or shoulder joint improves range of motion of the neck.
This way remedial massage helps the body to heal and remember what it’s natural position is. A remedial massage therapist will be able to know which technique and pressure work best on your body and will set up a treatment plan to assist you to eliminate the pain.
Self-Care
A little effort from your side is needed too. Your remedial massage therapist at MarisSage will give you stretches to do at home, give posture advice to create body awareness and will talk to you about your lifestyle and stress management. This can be as simple as drinking more water or moving more. Often strengthening is also necessary by a trained personal trainer or physiotherapist, to which they can refer you.
Don’t accept chronic pain!
Perhaps it is time to acknowledge that in this 24/7 computer-driven economy, massage is more than a treat but essential as a healthy lifestyle measurement for self-care.
Maintain your body. Look after it. Stay on top of it with regular remedial massage treatments, and don’t let the pressure build up to problems.
If you take care of your body, it will take care of you.
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