Welcome to WELLCARE Blog

Jane was an office worker, who always complaints about sore neck. She needed to stare at her computer for a long time to deal with a large amount of work.

She felt that her working desk and chair may be wrong or not suitable for her, because she got more and more pain during working. But when she was in her day-off time, she might just feel some stiffness but no obvious pain in her neck. Sometimes she put a heat pad on her neck and shoulder, trying to relieve some soreness.

One day, after waking up, she found that she got huge pain in her neck and it was too painful to move her neck. On that day, Jane still needed to go to work even though her neck pain cause headache and accompany muscle guarding. In this case Jane may have a problem of acute wry neck.

Acute wry neck is a common problem almost bothers everyone. It is usually found as huge pain after you wake up and it is too painful to turn your head to one side. This kind of pain can make your neck so stiff because of guarding muscles limit the range of motion of your neck.

In an Australian study, the researchers designed an item of the association between waking cervical symptoms. They found that the highest association was between waking cervical pain and stiffness.

The reason why it happens in the morning may because of poor sleeping posture of your neck is a trigger factor. This should be treated. It indicates that you may have a tight muscle group of neck and shoulder and your pillow does not suit you.

Another aggravating factor is that you may have a long-term neck issue. Neck problem may discomfort you sometimes but in some other times neck problem may be just under control. Nowadays, computers involve in a big portions of people’s occupation, which leads to a sedentary lifestyle. If you have being inactive for a while, the flexibility of your muscles decreases and you may get muscle strained easily even though you just do a small action.

Once you get a stiff neck in the morning, there are some tips you can follow and make yourself more comfortable.

• Put on a heating pad

The benefits of heat are quite a lot. The heat can reduce the stiffness in your joints, enhance blood circulation throughout your neck and shoulder, prevent low-intensity inflammation and improve your comfort levels. Try to have a heat pad on your shoulder and neck for 15-20 minutes. And then move your neck and shoulder gently and slowly in order to bring back the flexibility of your muscles.

• Massage muscles with a massage ball

When a muscle gets tight and de-flexible, you will find there are a few tender points along the muscle. The best way to get rid of it will be massaging it. You can know that your muscles are too tired if you find the following symptoms.

First, you will feel really sore when you rub this muscle. Sometimes you may have weird feeling go up to the head while you keep massaging a really sore spot. In this case, the muscle is trying to tell you it needs to relax. Second, the range of motion of your neck decreases, combining with pain at the end range or not. If you do not take this problem in serious, your neck becomes stiffer and stiffer.

Prepare a massage ball, or you can use a tennis ball for substitution. Lean on a wall and press on your tender point of neck muscle with a massage ball. There are two ways to do massage. One is massaging the point back and forth, and the other way is staying on the point for half minutes. Choose a more comfortable way you can tolerate.

• Do simple active movements for neck

In medical definition, muscle tissue is a soft tissue. As a good quality of skeletal muscle, it should be having good flexibility and nice muscle strength. In the other word, a skeletal muscle needs to maintain its function through movements. A correct movement is able to increase circulation and help every muscle fiber to work smoothly.

Neck movements can be divided into three anatomical planes, which are back and forth in a sagittal plane, lateral to lateral in a frontal plane and rotating in a spine axis.

You can move your neck in three different directions for ten times. Exercise three times a day or in your free time.

In the Jane’s case, the first goal is to relieve pain if you got acute wry neck. The next step is in the purpose of prevention. You can still get benefits from above tips. But there are some other important things you have to do and set good habits.

• Prevent from staying in a static position for more than one hour

In the working place, lots of people are too concentrating in their work and staring at the computer even without moving more than two hours. This is really harmful to your body. The muscles need movement to maintain flexibility and softness. Therefore, you have to cut down your static position and try to move once at least every hour. Even though you just stand up and try to move your neck around which is always much better than being static.

• Be in a good posture and work in a good ergonomic position

A good posture involves correct bony alignment and efficient muscle integration. You have to evaluate your working desk, chair and device position. If you can work in a correct ergonomic environment, you will get less injury from work.

Start with your desk. It should be the same height as your elbow when you are seated. Even the desk is too high or too low will cause problem. If your desk is not adjustable, you can just raise or lower your seat to the necessary level. Make sure your feet can reach the floor. If you cannot, just place a stool under your chair so that your feet don’t dangle in the air.

Your computer monitor should be just in front of your and at arm’s length and the top of the screen should be just below eye level. Placing it above eye level will force you to crane your neck higher, which will become more and more painful as time goes by.

We aspire for better health for our readers, liberate them from their painful episodes, and empower them to pursue their goals and aspirations, and future endeavours pain-free.