What to do if your cervical spine is stiff and uncomfortable? What kind of exercise is good for a stiff neck?

If you often keep the same posture while looking at your phone or computer for a long time, you will feel your cervical spine is a little stiff and tight, and sometimes you will feel sore. In this case, you should pay attention to rest your neck to avoid developing cervical spondylosis.

What to do if your cervical spine is stiff and uncomfortable

1. Stiff muscles

If you have a stiff neck, you should palpate the stiff area to see if there are any corresponding pain points, cord-like adhesions, or stiff and inelastic muscles. If so, the symptoms of pressing are basically the same. You must first take care of the muscles, which is the basis of rehabilitation. You can massage with a strength that feels comfortable to the pain, once a day, for 3 to 5 minutes for each pain point!

2. Cervical facet joint disorder

Cervical facet joint disorder is also called cervical micro-dislocation, which is one of the causes of neck stiffness and discomfort. If there is no problem with the neck muscles, or the points of tension and pain cannot be touched, or the pain has disappeared, but this feeling still occurs from time to time, you should consider this factor.

For minor dislocation of the cervical vertebra, massage is not effective. It will only provide temporary relief, but the symptoms will reappear soon and the muscles will become tense again. Therefore, after relaxing the muscles or warming up, it is very important to use bone correction techniques to adjust the disordered small joints back to their normal position!

3. Cervical protrusion is generally not considered

The incidence rate of cervical disc herniation is much lower than that of lumbar spine. After all, the head is relatively mild. When symptoms appear, it is often not cervical stiffness or neck discomfort. Most of them are mainly neck, shoulder and back pain, accompanied by pain and numbness in the upper limbs. If this is this problem, the neck muscles must be treated well, and then appropriate traction and head and neck rotation methods must be performed.

What exercises are good for a stiff neck?

Usually, you can slowly turn your neck to the left, then slowly turn it to the right, and then turn it back and forth to make your neck more comfortable. You must avoid working and studying in the same posture for a long time, especially working and studying with your head down. You should take a break every hour or so and move around for about 10 minutes.

Jog appropriately, adopt the correct running posture, keep your upper body straight or leaning forward, look straight ahead, relax your shoulders, neck and upper limbs, clench your hands slightly, bend your upper arms and forearms about 90 degrees, swing your arms back and forth naturally, and land lightly with both feet, with the forefoot landing first.

You can also do some hanging exercises, use your hands to lift the horizontal bar or door frame higher than your body, pull your body up, if your arm strength is weak, you can't hang your body, or you can put your heels on the ground and share some of your body weight with your toes. Do it once in the morning and evening, 3 times for 5 minutes each time.

How to massage for stiff neck

When your neck is stiff, try to get relief from it by massage. First, find the Fengchi point, press and hold it with your thumb and index finger for 1-2 minutes, then pinch the muscles on both sides of the cervical spine for 2-3 minutes, focusing on pinching or kneading the sore spots. Place one hand on the upper shoulder, use your fingers to knead or pinch the supraspinatus muscles for 2 to 3 minutes, or tap them lightly a few times. Depending on the situation, you can do this once in the morning and once in the evening. The neck will see significant improvement, or you can do massage at any time if you feel discomfort in your neck.