Do you have a stiff neck? If so, here are some quick fixes to help get you back to normal. Most neck pain is usually caused by a simple sprain or strain that will resolve within a couple days. In the meantime, though, there are many things that you can do to help speed up your progress and help you stay more comfortable. One of these things that you can do is heat or cold therapy. You can use whatever feels better for you as they're both going to work pretty similar on your physiology. I recommend applying for 10 to 15 minutes to the affected area, and you can even alternate between cold or heat, whatever feels better for you. You can also use over the counter medications to help reduce inflammation, help reduce pain and help you return to your daily activities sooner. Relative rest is also important. We don't recommend complete rest, as this can increase neck stiffness and even worse in your symptoms, but taking a step back from any really extreme or challenging tasks for a temporary amount of time will be helpful. Gentle stretching is also helpful as well as this encourages increased range of motion, increased blood flow, and can help promote healing. You can do stretching within your pain free limits in the first couple days.
Two things I recommend, first, gentle rotation, where you just rotate your head side to side in a range of motion that feels comfortable. Don't push this one into any sharp pain, but see if you can get a little bit more rotation that's comfortable with each repetition. If it's really uncomfortable to rotate or turn your head, then I recommend keeping your head in neutral and just doing a chin tuck. You'll sit up tall and just slide your head back as far as feels comfortable.
Working on those can help your neck from getting stiff and help start to improve your range of motion. Finally, doing low impact aerobic exercise can also really help with acute neck pain. This helps promote increased blood flow throughout your whole body and can help in release endorphins to help reduce pain. Doing something low impact, such as biking, walking or elliptical, can be really helpful. You can also lower your risk for a stiff neck. Two things you can do are practice good posture, so trying to avoid prolonged amounts of time the forward head posture, and when working on a computer, be mindful of your position and ergonomic setup. Also keeping your neck strong and flexible will help reduce the risk of the stiff neck, doing regular stretches and regular upper body, strengthening your arms, shoulders, neck and back, can be really helpful to learn more about neck pain. Please visit us at spine health and be sure to subscribe to our channel for more videos like this one. Thank you for watching.
Recommended for You
