Quick Relief for Tight Neck & Shoulders

Wake up with a crick in your neck? Been working at a desk all day? Experiencing neck pain or stiffness? In under 10 minutes, you can relieve the tension in your neck and shoulders with this easy, seated practice. You'll notice a big difference, guaranteed!

Transcript

Hi, Welcome to this practice. My name is Beth and this is a technology if you have Tight head, Neck, And shoulders. And what we're going to be doing is increasing the amount of contraction in this area in order to wake up the muscles to recognize the tension that they're holding so that they can fully release and relax. Starting seated, Feet nice and flat on the floor, Your posture erect. But not you know stiff. And go ahead and turn your head to the right And just. Come to your end range of motion where you're comfortable. You can maybe go just a little bit further, But just notice, You know, And stop before it becomes uncomfortable. Take note of any object that you see in front of you. And then come back to center. We'll do the same thing to the other side. You might notice one side is a little tighter than the other. Don't push beyond comfort. And just take note of whatever object. Your eyes gaze upon. Coming back to center. Okay, So here's what we do. You're gonna use the meat of your palm. And press your forehead into your hand and resist. With your head. So I'm going to just turn so you can see what I'm doing. So I'm just pressing in. And then pressing back with the head into the hand. Now, As I do this, You can probably see that the muscles of my neck tense. And relief. And relate. That's all you're doing. Just keep doing that. And make sure that your chin is staying parallel to the floor so we don't want to tilt. The chin down or up here, OK? Just do a few more and this is just at your own pace here. And your own amount of tension that feels comfortable for you. You can hold longer. Or shorter. Let's just do two more of those. Last one, Hold a little longer. And then when you need to let go, Simply relax. So we're going to do that to the back as well. Easiest way to do this is to interlace the hands behind the head, Right about level with the ears. And if it's not comfortable to have your elbows, You know, Directly out in one plane to the side, You can keep them a little forward. I find it easier actually, Though, When my arms are open to do the resisting with the head. So here, Same thing, We're going to push in with the hands and resist. Into the hands with the head. And repeat. So if you notice now there's some engagement. More engagement in my upper body. Not just the neck. And just press and release again. Sticking with your own comfort level. Holding and releasing. Last. That's three one. Two. And then the last one, Just hold a little longer. When you need to release. Go ahead and release. Okay, We have some more directions to go. So again, Using the meat of your palm, You're going to place it along the side of the head. Now, The temple might feel a little tender, So just go a little bit behind the temple. And here we want to keep again the chin parallel to the floor. And. The nose. . . Stays pointing forward. But what we're going to do is activate what would turn our head Okay, To the side. So- I press. Can see things activating and release. Press. Release again just go at your own pace we don't have to be together And this shouldn't hurt, You know, You're just activating. The muscles a little bit contracting and then releasing. It shouldn't be painful. A little bit of effort. Let's do one more and just hold it. And release. Good. Let everything go. Let everything soften. And now we want to do that to the other side as well. So find where your hand is comfortable. And again, Little too close to my temples i'm just going to move my hand a little activate release Chin parallel. To really watch for that. And nose forward so we're not we're not doing one of these okay One more. Hold it as long as it's comfortable. And release. Let go. One more direction to go. Again, Take your hand to the side of your head. This time it's ear to shoulder. Okay, So the same side as your hand, You're going to take that ear. Towards the shoulder, Resisting. And release. Resist. Resist. Good, Just do that a few times. As if you wanted to bring. . . Your ear towards your shoulder. And last one hold. And let go. Last one. Other side. Again, Is if you wanted to take your ear to your shoulder and resist. One more here just give it a good squeeze And when you need to. . . Really. All right, And now for the final test. You're gonna turn your head again. First side you turned your head to before. And just note how far your head goes this time. Compare your object. And where you are now. And back to center and go the other way. And just see maybe. Maybe you notice a big difference. Maybe you notice a little difference. I bet you notice a difference. I hope you enjoyed this practice. You can return to it anytime.