How to Relieve Neck Pain

Trish Muse: Hi, I am Trish Muse. I am a Physical Therapist. Today, I am going to show you how to avoid workplace injuries. Next, I will show you one simple stretch to alleviate neck pain. We often carry a lot of our stress in the very tops of our shoulders and bottom of our neck and the back or posterior portions of our neck. One thing that you can do to alleviate neck pain is to stretch. One simple stretch that really helps is try to turn your head all the way to your right side. Bring your chin towards your right shoulder like you are smelling your armpit, reach up with your right hand place it behind your head and reach down with your left arm towards the floor as you gently apply pressure from your right hand bringing your chin closer towards your chest. You want to hold this stretch for about 20 or 30 seconds and repeat it three to five times on each side.

Slowly release the stretch and just come back to center and now let's try it again on the neck side. So what I like you to do is turn all the way to your left as far as you can comfortably, bring your chin towards your armpit like you are going to smell your armpit. Reach up with your left hand, go right behind your head, reach for that nice ball part of your head, reach down with your right arm as you slowly apply pressure with your left hand bringing your chin or your nose closer towards your armpit. Reach down with your right hand or right fingertips towards the floor to really stretch out those muscles in your neck and shoulder. Again, hold the stretch for 20-30 seconds and repeat 3-5 times on each side. Slowly release your stretch and just come back to center. One way that you can just increase some of the extensibility of your muscles is maybe to apply some moist heat before you get started. That way your muscles will be a little bit more nicely to move. That's great.

Next I will show you one way to stretch your chest.