WAYS THAT MASSAGE CAN HELP NECK PAIN
Neck pain is one of the most common complaints we massage therapists hear from clients. It makes sense‌we do so much with our head and neck. Modern technology has only made this worse. We are constantly pulling our heads forward and down to look at phones, tablets, and laptops. This creates muscle imbalances that show up as achy pain in the back of our necks and shoulders.
Are You Suffering From Chronic Neck Pain? If so, the good news is that most of our clients find relief from chronic neck pain by enacting small but meaningful lifestyle changes. In addition, integrative medicine such as massage therapy can make all the difference. Check out this study on therapeutic massage for neck pain published by the NIH (National Institute of Health). Here’s how massage for neck pain can help you live pain free.
Discovering the Sources of Your Neck Pain
A great massage therapist doesn’t just massage your neck muscles. They will do a thorough intake before they start and listen to you describe your pain. We often engage in habitual movements that cause stress without realizing it. Your therapist can help you discover what patterns contribute to your pain and give you simple but effective ways to break those patterns. For example, do you do any of the following: Where you bag on the same shoulder every day
Sleep on the same side most nights Work on your laptop on the couch for several hours per week Have your desk set up with the monitor off to one side or the other Bend your head down to look at your phone multiple times a day Sleep on your stomach
There can also be larger causes such as whiplash injuries from car accidents, sports, or falling. we many more probable causes for neck pain. Working with a professional who know the body will help find these causes and work towards changing them. Changing even just a few of these habits will have a noticeable effect on your sense of relief from neck pain.
Working Through Stuck Muscles To Allow Movement Again After the intake, a great massage therapist will custom create a session for you that helps open up stuck muscle tissue. This will usually mean a targeted session as opposed to a full body session. They will likely work other muscles besides you neck. For instance, the position of your shoulders has a direct effect on neck pain. Ribcage position, pelvic position…even a lack of mobility in your ankles or hips can all be factors that lead to neck pain. A good rule of thumb in a 60 minute massage would be 40 minutes spent on related factors and then 20 minutes directly on your neck muscles. Opening up the ribcage would allow your head to relax backwards. As would opening up your
shoulders. The goal is that by the time your therapist starts working on your neck it will already be more relaxed and open to change. As the neck pain decreases, a therapist can work on more related factors in follow up sessions. Usually you’ll get noticable relief after the first or second session. After 3-4 sessions, this relief starts to “stick” and become the new normal. Eventually, somewhere around sessions 5 or 6 you’ll have a harder time remembering what the pain felt like as opposed to what relief feels like!
Freeing Trapped and Impinged Nerves
Your cervical vertebrae (the spinal bones in your neck) is a rather delicate and complex system. Each vertebra has dozens of tiny muscles attached to it leading to the vertebrae above and below. And each vertebra has many small nerves leading away to the sides of the spinal column. When your neck stiffens up or is unbalanced these nerves can become trapped or impinged by the muscles around them. Trapped nerves ache all the time and impinged nerves can cause sharper pain, numbness, or tingling with certain movements.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the pain from these symptoms causes the muscles to tighten and stiffen even more. This puts even more pressure on the nerves creating a feedback loop that spirals downward. More pain = tighter muscles = more trapped nerves = more pain. An experienced massage therapist will work on your neck muscles in layers. As each layer gains more mobility, the pressure on the nerves lessons. With a combination of fascial release techniques, guided movements and stretching, and light traction techniques, more space is created between the vertebrae and around the nerves. Less pain = less trapped nerves = looser muscles = less pain. Which I’m guessing sounds way more appealing, right?
Supporting You in Making Small Lifestyle Changes After a great massage, your therapist will offer some suggestions to help break up habits and patterns that were possible sources for your neck pain. These should be relatively easy and small changes at first, unless there is something bigger that really stands out (for instance, your weekly ride on the Cyclone in Coney Island). Examples might be: Changing which side you wear your bag on for a month Switching which side of the bed you sleep on Having you create a workstation at home so that you can work in a better position Improving the ergonomics of your workstation at home and the office Holding your phone up to eye level so that your head can balance properly Some stretches to add to your daily routine Then you will work together to create a plan for a series of sessions so that you can get relief that sticks around for the long term. Each follow up session will have
an intake, massage, and outtake. If the practices and changes prescribed helped, great! If they didn’t your therapist will ask different questions to try and better isolate the sources of pain. The goal of a targeted series of massages for neck pain is to not just work on the muscles, but to also leave you with a set of new tools and habits to prevent the old pain from coming back. Neck Pain Massage in New York
At Bodyworks DW Advanced Massage Therapy, we specialize in medical neck pain massage for New York City. We’ve worked with thousands of happy clients to reduce and eliminate neck pain. Our studio offers neck pain massage in midtown and the financial district every day. If you would like to schedule an amazing neck pain massage experience, please contact Bodyworks DW Advanced Massage therapy today! Content Source