Did you recently noticed continuous stiffness in area of your neck and shoulders? Do you feel it is impossible to relax this part of your body as well as your mind?
What Does it feel Like?
A stiff neck is characterized by soreness and difficulty moving the neck, especially when trying to turn the head to the side. It can be accompanied by a headache, neck pain, shoulder pain and often also pain in your arm.
What Causes the Pain?
Anxiety is closely connected to this kind of pain. Behaving in an anxious manner causes the stress response to activate. It is designed to bring about specific emotional changes that enhance our ability to deal with danger. We are getting into fight or flight mode.
A part of the stress response causes the body muscles to tighten in an attempt to protect the body from harm (tight muscles are more resilient to damage). This muscle tightening effect can affect any muscle or muscle group in the body, including those in the neck and back of the head.
Symptoms can persist long after the stress response has ended.
What Helps
You can speed up the recovery process by reducing your stress levels, practicing relaxed breathing and increasing your rest and relaxation. When your body has recovered from sustained stress, this symptom will completely disappear. Useful thing to remember is trying to prevent the symptoms before they appear.
We have some short-term fast working remedies. It is anything that relaxes the mind and reduces the tension in the body including:
- Doing a deep relaxation technique such as guided meditation
- Doing gentle stretching exercises such as yoga or tai-chi
- Mild to moderate exercise you enjoy (exercise is an effective stress reducer)
- Having a massage
- Pampering yourself with a warm bath
- A heating pad on the back of the neck (heat reduces muscle tension)
- Sore muscle ointment (tiger balm)
Try this gentle yoga practice that will make you feel loose as a goose. Anyone who spends more than a couple hours in front of a computer, or is just a general neck and shoulder slumper can benefit from these basic exercises.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MypjOs5ZC8c
I tend to practice early in the morning to set myself up beautifully for a day. I used to have stiffness in my shoulders and so now I use my practice as a prevention and to work out all the possible morning stiffness straight from the start.
Remember to let me know how you felt after one of my online morning sessions. I made them freely available to you all and to register, it takes only a minute: http://https://www.joinflex.tv/c/lucia
Let me know how I can help you to grow more consistent yoga and meditation practice.
For everything nice we do for ourselves, our body and mind rewards us back twice as much and I would love to play a part on your wonderful journey.
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