OUCH!!! My Neck Hurts!

 

Feeling aches or pains since pivoting to WFH (Work From Home)?

For many of us, the switch from working in an office to an at home environment has increased the amount of time spent working on the couch, kitchen table, or in front of smaller screens. Accompanying these changes in scenery and habits are new aches and pains associated with how you work. Here are a few ideas you may find helpful to mitigate the OUCH and help you on your journey to true self and body awareness.

Working at our desk with improper posture for multiple hours, we tend to be tighter on the front side of our body and have weaker, overly stretched muscles on the back side of the body. This creates an imbalance that impacts those muscles which align our shoulders and neck. Not only do we feel aches and pains in these areas, but we also feel secondary effects such as headaches, day-time fatigue, insomnia, and jaw issues like TMJ.

Suggestions:

  • Develop body awareness to improve posture at your work-station (view article: Posture Impacts Our Health)

  • Utilize wellness resources like physical therapists, massage practitioners, and chiropractors

  • Take ACTION: we suggest some simple exercises below to begin with

What can you do to fix this imbalance?

For better alignment, we need to lengthen the front of the body—the chest—and strengthen the upper back. Here’s two exercises you can try right now; both can be done at your desk during quick breaks between your online meetings.

  1. Sit with your ‘best’ possible posture with your eyes on the horizon; as you bring the back of your hands to your forehead, relax your shoulders and your facial features. (see exercise #1 in the video). This exercise may appear easy, but try holding this position for a little while. It may surprise you how difficult it is to sustain. Usually those muscles are weak from the daily tech-body posture. This is a simple, yet effective exercise to start us on our journey to strengthening our upper back.

  2. We encourage you to try active stretching—specifically stretching your chest is helpful for upper body posture. Plus, with this unique exercise, it will help strengthen your back at the SAME time (see #2 in the video). With a medium sized towel or yoga strap in your hands, raise your arms above your head while maintaining relaxed shoulders and a smile. Then, slowly bend your elbows down into cactus position, creating a W-shape with your arms. From here, gently lift your chest upwards while extending your spine as you actively use your back muscles to bring your elbows backwards toward the floor.

Try out these exercises and let us know how they work for you.

Want to learn more? Follow 2 Claps 1 Snap on Instagram for our Wellness Wednesday Series, where we provide weekly exercise & health tips and videos.