Give your neck a little love!

🌿Today I will mostly be nursing a strained neck as a result of bending my neck backwards over the basin at the hairdresser! My shiny new discs have never responded well to neck extension - mindful neck extension fine but hanging my head back over a basin for 20 mins, not such a good idea 🙄 Perhaps it’s time to embrace the grey?!

🌿The neck or cervical spine is a complex network of bones, joints, ligaments, nerves and muscles. It has the very important job of supporting and mobilising our heavy head! Therefore the neck needs to be well cared for, particularly this day and age as it is consistently exposed to a great deal of extra stress caused by excessive activity on smart phones! When you’re next on your phone - probably now - move to a mirror and observe your posture! It is likely that your chin is drawing right down towards your chest! 

🌿Healthy joints, muscles & bones help to maintain a normal range of movement in the neck and are designed to support the head in an upright position, allowing for flexion, extension, lateral flexion and rotation. But as we repeatedly gaze down at a phone for long periods of time, we are placing a huge load on the neck. Overtime, this excessive forwards position of the neck may accelerate degenerative changes in the cervical spine. My neurosurgeon advised me to stop phone activity as much as possible if I wanted to preserve my neck!

🌿If your neck, shoulders and upper back feel stiff, achy and you notice less mobility through the spine then try to reduce time on your devise or sit in a more supported position so you can raise your devise to eye level. 

🌿If you find you’re on your phone quite a bit then make every effort to stretch the neck and shoulders to release tension and strengthen your neck. Check out my Pose by Pose videos - especially cat cow, forward fold and downward facing dog as well as ‘Wake Up’ - a 15 min flow for some simple neck stretches.