Give Some Loving To The Neck

You need a foam block for this one so that it is not to hard. I recommend the blocks from Gaiam.
This is a short practice you can use to help release the build up of tension at the base of the skull. Occipital muscles are four small muscles at the base of the skull. These muscles, located just below the occipital bone at the top of the neck, are crucial for stabilising the head and rotating/extending the neck. They are common sites for tension-related headaches, migraines, and stiffness.

Transcript

Hi, My friend. This is for those days that your neck is not feeling great. Now, If you're in a lot of pain, Then maybe just go gentle with this. It might not be suitable. But if you've just, You know, Woken up with a bit of a cold. Crooked neck. Or you have some tightness or just achiness or headaches, This could be really great for you. So we're going to take one block. Again, Make sure you don't have these really hard, Like, Core. . . Or even wooden blocks. We need some softness to it. We're gonna turn and come on to the back. The feet on the mat, So your knees are bent, Making sure that your pelvis is nice and neutral. And then the head will come down on the block. Now we're going to use the hands to lift the block onto an edge so that the hands are going to have to hold the block because now I'm balancing it on the block. That back edge. And this top edge here is now right in. You can see my head. The edge is pushing. The back of my skull upwards. And therefore my chin is dropping towards my chest. So the focus is on the back of the neck lengthening, The skull lifting. And then we're just gonna hold the block in that position. So we've got some stability. You can relax your elbows down if that's comfortable, Or if you don't have that space in your shoulders, Just keep them where it feels comfortable for you. In this position with the neck lengthened so your chin is not sticking up. We're then going to roll and massage. This bottom part of your skull. This is called the occipital. I can never pronounce this. These are occipital muscles that are really connecting from your cervical spine to the back of your skull. And these are very small muscles. And they go all the way across this space just think from your the back between your two ears and they can get really tight they can get really tired You can imagine them as being a little bit grumpy or a little bit sad. And so we're here giving them a little bit of love with this massaging by rolling our head across this spot, This part of our head. Head and you might feel quite a lot of tenderness doing this and that's okay. You might even want to stay with your head turned to one side and then just maybe rock here forward and back. Maybe you find a spot where it's particularly kind of you feel, Oh yeah, That's the spot and you might just rock here gently. Also going to bring our focus to our breath. Letting us have a little sigh, Relaxing our jaw, Right? Because we want to relax all the muscles. Especially the jaw muscles, The throat, The eyes. The forehead. So you could just spend a few minutes here. Finding parts that feel that they need a little love. And you can even drop your chin, Get a stretch. And then just take a nice breath in. And exhale, You let out. Once you feel like you've had enough, You might lower the block and just again take a moment with your arms relaxed to your sides. Letting the back of the neck now fill into that space, That openness. And then when you feel ready, A good thing to be mindful of is when we come to get up from doing something like this is to roll onto your side but watch if you're trying to kind of lift your head first. I want you to use your arms and your core. And your head is just going to follow the rest of your core. You see I'm not trying to like lift myself up with my head. We don't want to undo all that goodness that we just did. And then when you come up, You. . . Hopefully might feel a little bit of a release. And. Feel that space that you just created for yourself. Thank you and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.