How To Deal With Neck Pain From Sedentary Lifestyle?

How to deal with neck pain from a sedentary lifestyle? There are a lot of ways, but firstly, you need to understand why this happens and how you can prevent it.

In this article, we will discuss some common reasons for this kind of problem and how to deal with them. 

Also, we will provide precautions so that you can avoid this problem altogether.

Problems with the neck in a sedentary lifestyle

Most of us who are in desk jobs or have to work long hours on computers are prone to have neck issues.

Most of the time, we are so focused on the work that we forget about our posture and end up having stiff back or forward head syndrome.

This is a common side effect of a sedentary lifestyle and can be easily fixed.

Reasons for pain in the neck due to a sedentary lifestyle

There are a lot of reasons for which you can have neck pain. Here are some common reasons for the same.

Official life

This is the primary contributor to discomfort or pain in the neck. If you have a desk job, you might be spending long hours on your desk.

This may lead to overall bad posture for your spine, especially the cervical spine.

Sitting Posture

Most of us neglect the way we sit. If you are sitting at a desk and are slouching or having any other form of bad sitting posture, then you will probably have neck issues.

Also, not only neck issues, you will have pain in the back and may also have pain and discomfort in the other parts of the body.

If you can sit at a desk by following proper ergonomic guidelines, you can avoid a lot of such issues.

The height of your computer screen is not proper

If your computer screen is placed much below your eye level, this forces your head to bend forward.

Keeping this posture for a long time will definitely lead to neck pain. However, this can be easily rectified by placing the computer screen on something that is at a higher level.

Sleeping on a pillow that is too hard or too soft

Sleeping on a pillow that is too hard or too soft may result in discomfort and neck pain.

If you have a very hard pillow, it will put a lot of strain on your neck as it will apply too much reverse pressure on your neck.

Also, if you use a too soft pillow, it will not provide any resistance to your neck. Your head will basically hang down and will have an additional stretch on the opposite side and a cramp on the other side.

Both of these will lead to neck pain.

If you have bad posture from childhood

If you have bad posture from childhood then also you can have this kind of neck pain. If you slouch or hunch your back, this can cause a lot of pain.

How to identify a forward head syndrome?

If you are working long hours on the computer and have an uneasiness in your neck if you have this kind of a head position as shown in the picture.

In this position, your head will be like sticking forward from your body slightly, like you are staring at something intensely.

If you don’t take care of it, you may end up having cervical spondylosis.

Structure of Cervical Spine

Muscles in the neck

Before you have a problem with the cervical spine, you will observe uneasiness in these neck muscles.

If you feel uneasiness, pain, or any kind of discomfort, then you should start the following neck strengthening exercises.

Neck Exercises

Neck problems can be painful and really annoying and may make it very difficult for you to work.

However, these problems can be reversed if you take precautions early on. Here is a set of exercises that will help you to maintain your neck health.

Neck Side Bend

This is a very easy exercise that you can do sitting anywhere and will hardly take 1-2 mins to complete.

This will stretch and strengthen the sides of the neck and will relieve you from any stiffness in that area.

Steps

• Sit in an upright position with your back straight.
• Hold the right side of your head with the palm of your left hand.
• Now bend your neck toward the right shoulder while applying gentle pressure with your left palm.
• Hold it for 5 counts and release.
• Repeat the above steps with the other side of the head and with the opposite hand.
• Do 10 times on each side.

Neck Flexion

This exercise will stretch and strengthen the sides of the back of your neck.

Steps

• Sit in an upright position with your back straight.
• Hold the right side of your head with the palm of your left hand.
• Now bend your neck toward the front right shoulder while applying gentle pressure with your left palm. Your elbow will be facing front.
• While in this position, look toward the ceiling.
• Hold it for 5 counts and release.
• Repeat the above steps with the other side of the head and with the opposite hand.
• Do 10 times on each side.

Neck Retraction

This will stretch the backside of your neck.

Steps

• Sit in an upright position with your back straight and against a wall.
• Place the backside of your head against the wall.
• Now keeping the head on the wall, lower your chin slightly until you feel a stretch on the back of your head.
• Hold it for 5 counts and release.
• Do this stretch 10 times.

Neck Isometric Exercises

This is a set of 4 exercises where you will be putting pressure on your neck from all 4 sides. In this exercise try to keep your neck as still as possible.

Steps

• Sit in an upright position.
• Place the base of your right palm on the right side of the head.
• Increase the pressure on your head with the palm while simultaneously resisting the pressure with your head. See to it that your head doesn’t move at all from the place.
• Hold it for 5 counts and release.
• Do this stretch 10 times and on all four sides of your head namely front, back, left, and right.

Precautions To Avoid Neck Pain From Sedentary Lifestyle

There are a few things that you can do if you want to avoid neck pain due to your sedentary lifestyle.

Using a medium soft pillow

As mentioned before, a very soft or hard pillow can cause pain in your neck.

However, if you use a medium soft pillow, you may not have to deal with this kind of neck pain. If you are having confusion, try using a memory foam pillow.

A medium soft pillow will provide your head and neck with optimum support and may provide you with relief from your neck pain.

Improving seating posture

This kind of neck problem happens mainly due to bad posture. Improving your seating posture is one of the best ways to avoid it.

The first change that you can do is to level up the height of your laptop or desktop placement. For that, you have many inexpensive solutions available.

Also using an ergonomic chair may provide you with proper support in the required places. This will also help you to improve your posture as well.

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