Stretches for Neck Tension

📍 📍 📍 One of the most common things that we see, with patients that come into the clinic is a lot of 📍 neck tension. One, a couple of things that can cause it 📍 sitting at a desk for x amount of hours and not taking breaks. Or if you have a job where you’re always reaching forward for here, we have Jennifer, our lovely assistant here.

She’s a nurse and reaching 📍 over, picking up patients, trying to stabilize the core. But I’m sure that when she’s doing that, she’s also engaging some of her neck muscles. to try and lift the patients up. A lot 📍 of the tension in the neck, what we’re going to do is teach you a few tips on how to relieve that tension.

And a few things that we’re going to work on are her traps here. And one way to 📍 stretch this big muscle, the traps, is you’re going to, say you’re sitting down, you’re going to hold on to the side of the table here, or a chair. So that way your shoulder stays down. What happens with people is when they try to stretch their neck, 📍 they’re not realizing that they’re actually lifting their shoulder up with it.

And trying to stretch at the same time, which defeats the purpose. So holding it and tractioning it down will help, get a further stretch. You’re gonna take that other hand, it’s gonna be on the side of your temple, just right here. 📍 Keeping the neck slightly tucked in the chin a little bit, not jutting forward, more of a neutral position.

You’re gonna stretch it to the opposite side. Feel that stretch right here? So anytime you do some stretches, especially, or any other exercises, you want to make sure you’re breathing. So breathe. 📍 Holding it for a couple of seconds, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, depending how tight you are until you start to feel that muscle melt and release.

How does that feel? Good. Good, and relax. 📍 So another common muscle that gets very tense that rises our shoulders up. Throughout the day, we’ll see that the levator muscle that goes from the back of the top of the scapula up to the mid neck right here. Almost the same move as stretching a trap, but we’re going to do a little bit of a different move with the 📍 neck.

So go ahead and traction down that arm. You’re going to look down to the left side, to your knee. And you’re going to feel a little bit more here, down towards the back of that top of that shoulder blade. Feel that? Same thing, breathing until it releases. 📍 Good, making sure the shoulder’s not hiking up.

Perfect. There we go. Good and relax. 📍 One other way you can stretch the levator to get a further stretch is we’re going to have this arm not holding onto the chair, but you’re going to have it up here touching the opposite side shoulder blade. That’s going to rotate her shoulder blade upwards to get a further stretch on the levator muscle.

📍 Then looking down to that left side right there. Good. Make sure you’re not turning your mid back. It’s all neck that’s moving and breathe. So you feel it right in here, that’s getting a little bit more effect with the stretch on that levator muscle. 📍 Good, and relax feels good?

Very, very hard muscle to stretch. One of them is your scalene. There’s three of them here. The most common one that can get very tight is your middle and your front here. So the front scalene muscle actually lives, if you turn your head to the left, 📍 you can see that big muscle, the SCM muscle, lives around towards the side of it.

So I can even feel it on Jennifer right here. You can feel How it’s that skinny muscle, it’s strumming, thin right there. She’s actually going to help me with the stretch. Taking either hand. She can take that hand, the right hand, or the left hand. 📍 She’s going to, pull down that tissue where it lives.

Pulling it downwards, depressing the chest. Now you’re going to look to the right, and look up. With a slight tilt backwards. You feel it stretching that front part of your chest? Good, and breathe. That’s your front anterior scalene muscle, 📍 which can get very tight if you’re stressed.

Some people start to breathe from the chest, activating their, sympathetic nervous system when they should be breathing from their diaphragm. Scalene muscles are very common and getting tight on a lot of people. Good, and relax. So here at Optmz State Spine Movement and Wellness Center, 📍 we can treat neck issues like what she’s having here with either adjusting, adjustments are great for neck tension, along with soft tissue work like cupping, scraping to release and create dynamic fluid motion with the tissues, as well as 📍 showing some corrective exercises like stretching, stabilization for the neck.

So if you’re experiencing some neck pain, we’d 📍 love to help you out. We’d love to meet the rest of the community here in Tracy. So go ahead and give us a call here at Optmz State and we can see if we’re perfect fit for you, get you analyzed, and get you treated.