The fabled I just woke up like this. Or I slept wrong. That’s not usually how it works. When you have those moments where you wake up and you have a crick in your neck or you basically cannot move it at all. And if this happens regularly to you, meaning once a year or more, there’s something deeper at play. This is NOT NORMAL. So what is happening?
Your neck is becoming stiff and weak. We live in a world where we are sitting more than anything else. Working at a computer encourages a sedentary forward head posture that is wrecking havoc on our bodies. Our necks start to lose their natural curvature and become strained day in and day out. With the forward head posture that comes so naturally with desk work we put extra strain on the muscles in the back of the neck. They have to work significantly harder to hold the head upright. To further illustrate, your typical adult head weighs around 15 lbs. But with forward head posture where the head is sitting 3 inches in front of the shoulders, that 15 lb head can turn into an easy 60 lbs. Due to the increased leverage being put upon the bones and muscles they literally are now carrying an extra 45 lbs of load. Look at this from the lens of years and decades… it’s no wonder you have neck pain, headaches, migraines that have been unrelenting. It’s because you keep putting your body into the state of dysfunction, it can’t keep up, and the problem gets worse and worse.
So what’s the solution?
We need to start promoting the opposite of the dysfunctional pattern. We need to change the curvature of the neck so the head can sit over the shoulders again. This will allow for better joint spacing and less reliance on the joints to support the head and for the muscles to more efficiently do their job that was once way too strenuous. When we can start to appropriately allocate responsibility to the muscles, less on the joints, with proper posture and alignment… then we can take that 60 lb head and bring it back to it’s true weight.
We do this through our 3 step approach.
1 - Mobilize: Through the chiropractic adjustment we break the adhesions through the joint capsule allowing for greater range of motion and decreasing the painful sensations being sent to the brain.
2 - Stabilize: When we learn more about the proper standing neutral posture and implement it throughout the day we allow for the muscles to do the work the joints were previously doing. Making for a more dynamic and open structure within the body.
3 - Strengthen: Enhancing the neuromusculoskeletal connection allows for greater dynamic coordination, strength and support from the moldable muscular tissues instead of the more stagnant bones and joints of the body.
As we cycle through these phases of care the spine starts to decompress, joints open up, and function is restored. Meaning no more neck pain, headaches or migraines. No more waking up with a crick in your neck a few times a year. Back to feeling free in your body and no longer a prisoner in it.
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