 host Christine Linder's physical therapist, board-sortified orthopedic clinical specialist. Today we're going to talk about neck pain and headaches. Neck pain and headaches are one of the most popular things that people complain about and they are mostly caused by one simple, faulty thing that we are all doing repetitively throughout the day. It's a fact. In today's episode I will reveal the number one reason why you have neck pain, headaches, or even migraines. So the biggest thing that all of us do during the day is look down. I don't have my phone because I'm on my phone right now. My computer was having some issues this morning, but we look down. We look down at a book. We hang our head down like this to look at everything. I work, I look down. People doing massage look down. If you are typing on a keyboard, you may be looking at a piece of paper, you look down. New baby, we look down. So the looking down takes our neck, this natural curve here, and it rounds it like that. Why that's the problem is because we have all these muscles that stabilize our neck and head over our shoulders. So when you look down, those muscles have to reach out and they have to hold onto your head so it doesn't fall over and they get really upset. They get really overused and they can spasm. But also, right in the base of our head here, we have these tiny little muscles that run, I'll show you on the skeleton, that run from the base of your head here to the first and the second cervical vertebrae. So there's ones that run like my finger up here connecting the head to one and the head to one and two. And there's ones that go like this, like a little, I always tell people, they're like, they're like this on either side. And they connect from here to this bone right on the side of the first cervical vertebrae and then down to the spinous process here on the second. Why you get headaches and even migraines, migraines is a little bit more of a different kind of a condition, but it still produces pain and lots of other symptoms is because we have these big nerves and arteries that will come up the back of our neck, they will pierce right between these muscles here and they will go up into your head. And so when you are hanging your head down or sitting in poor posture, those nerves will get pinched in between those muscles that are now tightening because you're in a bad position and it can set off either the headaches or the eye grains where it just hits like right behind your eye. Or worse, it can, if you're prone to migraine strength headaches, the real migraine where you get visual disturbances, you can get nauseous, you might have to go into a dark room, it can set off the process that sets off that auto dysregulation in you and give you these terrible headaches. So we want to stop that. And how you stop that is to be aware of your posture. And so if you're sitting like this, have someone take a picture, you're from the side, so you can see that will kink those muscles to set you up for a headache. If you are sitting like this looking down at your phone, which I see so many people, especially young people doing all day long, that will strain these muscles, they will pull back and spasm them and you can set yourself up for neck pain, headaches or migraines. So simple fix, try to sit up straight, try to either lift your chest, try to squeeze your shoulder blades back, try to get into a better posture and try to schedule that habit so you can teach yourself to be in a better posture so that you can get rid of these neck headaches, eye grains, migraines, etc. So now what do you do? I have one miracle tip. I say that because most of my complicated patients that have headaches and migraines will come back and say nothing else worked, but that really helped me to get rid of my migraine. So let's go to video number one to learn. This is the miracle move for getting rid of your neck pain, your headaches, especially migraines and improving your posture. It's an isometric exercise. You can do it lying in your back or you can do it standing against the wall, which means you can do it anywhere. To start, so you get to know what you're going to be doing, you're going to lay on your back. If you need to use a pillow to keep your face level because your posture's this, you don't want to do it this way. You've got to support yourself so that your face is level without your chin lifted. So I can lay on the floor here. So what you're going to do is you're going to go palms up. You are going to squeeze your shoulders back. You're going to move this bone back towards the mat. You'll feel like your ribcage lift a little. That's okay. You can put your legs straight, whatever you want to do. Press those shoulders back right here and you are going to hold it for 20 to 30 seconds. You're not pushing your head back, you're pressing your shoulders back. If someone looked down at you, you would look like the letter I and you squeeze and you'll hold for 20 seconds, then you relax. After that, you're going to put your arms straight out to the side like you're in the shape of a letter T and you are not going to push your hands back. You're going to squeeze your shoulder blades back into the bed, back into the floor. I like the floor or a mat table so you can really feel your shoulder blades. Keep pressing back. Again, you're going to feel your ribcage lift a little bit, hold. Hold. You'll feel everything in the posterior aspect of your body. Tense up, 20 to 30 seconds. Then you're going to put your arms in the shape of a W. Whatever you can do, I'm flexible so my hands can go back. If you can't, that's okay. You are going to push your shoulder blades back and squeeze them back into the floor. I can push my hands back so if you can, you can push your hands back. You can turn and push your thumb back and you're going to hold for 30 seconds. You can also do the standing against the wall at work or at home to get rid of any influence giving you a headache or giving your neck pain. Try that exercise. Try it against the wall. Try it in your bed. Try it on the floor. Wherever you are, you need to do that exercise. It's really kind of fantastic. I learned it a long time ago. The principle of isometric exercise where you basically will squeeze back and hold for a period of time. Squeeze back and hold for a period of time. If you've watched my show, Movement Matters, Physical Therapy for Better Life, you've seen me do many exercise with bands on the wall with weights and this one is simple. You can do it anywhere. You just need a wall or a bed or the floor. Please try that to set yourself free and to begin to get yourself into a better posture. It'll give you an idea. If you can't reach your thumbs to the floor or if your shoulders are really far off the floor or if you need a big pillow because your head doesn't get down to the floor. That's more the awareness that you need to gain in order to correct your posture is that you may not be in ideal posture throughout your day. You're sitting at your desk. We're all sitting at some point during our day. Let's go to video number two to learn what you can quickly do at your desk. Here's what to do at your desk. If you find yourself slouching over your desk or if you just have leaning into your desk, you're even working for hours and all this starts to bother you. First, elongate the muscle and relieve pain. It's not that the muscle needs to be stretched to lengthen it, but needs to be stretched to alleviate your pain. So how I like to do this is you're going to grab your hand at the base of your head and pull up towards the sky. First, you're not going to take your head and crunch it this way. I heard my neck crack. You're going to pull up towards the sky, elongating your neck and then bringing it over towards the side that your arm is. You're going to breathe. You can also put your hand here and pull this side down. You can reach for the floor. You're going to hold for 10 to 20 seconds. You're going to reset then. Pull up so you don't compress your neck and then look towards your armpit and stretch all this out to relieve the tension that's in that muscle from holding your head up. Breathe to elongate. 10 to 20 seconds. Then you're going to reset. Pull up towards the ceiling. Keep yourself in great alignment and then you're going to let your face turn a little bit towards the ceiling. You'll feel a little bit more of a stretch here. That's number one. You stretch out those tight muscles. Number two, you activate the muscle to help hold you up. So you're going to clasp your hands here. You're going to use this part, the heel of your hand and this part right here on the other side to squeeze the base of your head. So you're going to do this. Clasp your hand, squeeze and lift up towards the ceiling and then you're going to squeeze your elbows back to activate 10 to 15 times. That's number one. Number two, same thing. Lift up towards the ceiling and then you stretch. You elongate. Lift this elbow up towards the ceiling. Don't bend over. Keep your torso long. Lift up and stretch over and breathe. Longer. Lift up, repeat to the other side. You're in perfect posture. If anything, you can lean back. Start with the structures and number three is like doing a chin tuck squish. So you can do that anywhere but you can't just push your head back into a free space. You don't want to shear your neck. You want to use the muscles to do that. So you're going to clasp at the base of your head and then just tuck your chin and squish your head into your hands. So your hands meet the resistance. You'll feel the back part of your neck tensing. So try those at your desk to free yourself from pain and improve your posture. So you're learning a little bit more about how to improve your posture. You're learning a little bit more on how that can directly affect neck pain headaches and migraines. But what if you've been, what if you're realizing right now that you're really slouched forward and you try to sit up and you don't make much of a change? That's just because the muscles on the front of our body tend to get a little bit shorter and tighter and they hold us there. So you're trying to lift your chest up but your upper back muscles aren't strong enough to compete with the tight front muscles. Let's go to video number three where we're going to learn how to stretch the front out so you can just relax back into a improved posture. An incredible way to release the tight muscles in your chest from using them all day long to allow your posture to sink back effortlessly is to find a doorway which we all can find at some point during the day. To protect your shoulder you're going to put your arms out in the shape of the letter T not like this. You're going to go straight. We want to use the pectoralis minor to lift your rib cage so you get out of this position and open up. It'll make life so much better for you. So you're going to go elbows straight like you're in the shape of a letter T. You're going to put one foot in front so you can rest the weight of your body and your leg and not on your shoulders and you are going to bend the front leg until you feel a stretch in here but as soon as you get that stretch you're going to take the back foot push through the door lift your sternum and your chest up to the sky and inhale rapidly like this. Inhale rapidly lift your chest the feeling you'll feel a beautiful opening up as it pulls your rib cage up. You can also look your head away from the leg that's lunging and breathe in three times lift your chest and breathe lift your chest and breathe and then switch legs bend the front leg lift and chest your breathe look away lift your chest and breathe to prevent this and allow yourself to easily get into an open posture and remove all the stress from your neck and your head. One of my favorite stretches right there I actually do it a few times throughout the day and I discovered the ability to use the pec minor which pulls us down here when you fix it with your shoulders wide and you inhale it allows the bottom part to lift your rib cage and pull you up so that's something that pretty much every single human can do to get into a doorway to do that stretch and have it be safe for your body. Another one of my favorites which is not for everyone is to get on a foam roll if you've got a really stiff posture or you're older and you've been in that position for a long time or you have osteoporosis or maybe a discarnation you're going to have to go see your physical therapist to see if the foam roll is going to be good for you but most everybody else can use this to stretch out so let's go to video number four it's like in the foam roll. Having access to a foam roller has transformed my neck over the years and many necks of my patients you can also roll up a yoga mat or pillows as long as it goes from your head to your tailbone and keeps your spine safe then you can use whatever you need to use but I have a foam roll here so I'm going to show you you're going to put your your buttocks your tailbone on the foam roll and you're going to lay right up the middle of your back so that your head's on it too and you're going to put your arms out to the tee if you feel like you're kicked forward I tell people to squeeze your shoulder blades back and then put your arms out so that you're in the shape of a letter T at first you're going to let your head fall to the left and then you're going to lean and you're going to breathe three times to stretch out this side the away side after three breaths you're going to come back in the middle let your head fall over to the other side you may feel a big stretch in here stretch out here take deep breaths in to release your pec after you do that back and forth however long in case your hands don't go on the floor you can rest them on blocks or towels you'll notice that they melt towards the floor then you can squeeze your shoulder blades in and either trace the upper half of the snow or sand angel or if that's painful on your shoulders you can actually rest here and try to touch your thumbs back squeezing your shoulder blades into the roll 10 to 15 times and then after that you can keep your thumbs to the floor and go up and down squeezing your shoulder blades into the roll if you can't touch the floor that's okay just maybe use a little pillow or something at first because you don't want to cause shoulder pain but this foam roll is transformative to get your chest open to release all the tension that's on your neck giving your neck pain and or headaches you can also roll up a pillow and use it on your bed or roll up a yoga mat and use it on your bed there's a lot of different ways to get the same benefit from the foam roll and you can see now how that doorway chest stretch is very similar and that enables you to get the same thing so I wanted to show you a little bit on my guy here a little Richie where the pec minor attaches so here's your shoulder blade this on the back of your body right here and this still is your shoulder blade this little bone right here your pec minor the pectoralis minor attaches from that little bone down to these ribs like that and so you can see from the side how that can hold your shoulder blade down forward keeping you in a poor posture so you want to make sure that you open this area up so that the shoulder blades can sit back and your rib cage and your spine can sit back into a better posture so let's go to video number five where I'm going to show you how to stabilize your neck so you've been sitting in this forward head posture these muscles back here have become very tight giving you headaches and neck pain these muscles have become very weak because they're stretched and elongated all the time let's learn in the next video unless you've injured yourself let's say in a car accident or where the whiplash uh fall most headaches and neck pain come from poor posture and poor positioning of your head and neck and your upper body while you're going about your day and neck pain 101 a headache pain 101 is to restore the relationship from this to here so that your ear falls right over the central axis of your shoulder and you are directly in the line of gravity with only muscles stabilizing you and your spine is in a happy place so if you have achieved this position from looking down on those glorious devices that we all use and not being aware or hunching over your table or hunching over your new baby you need to restore that relationship and stretch these muscles that have become tight from you being in this forward head posture and strengthen these muscles that have become weak they're stabilize your neck so you're going to lay on your back again you want to make sure you keep your face level so if you're like this when you line your back because you're too you're too tight in here put a pillow so you get this relationship i'm going to do this because i'm okay there and you're going to nod your chin down and release that activates these important neck stabilizers nod your chin down and release you can work up to nodding your chin down and holding for 10 seconds the next exercise that's the chin tuck right here the next exercise is the chin tuck press i call it so you'll need a pillow or something i didn't bring one out here but i'm going to use my hand so let's pretend this is a pillow i'm going to nod my chin down and gently squish the pillow nod my chin down and gently squish the pillow i'm gently pushing into my hand not my chin down squish the pillow that helps to activate the important stabilizers the neck flexors as well as elongate the back of the neck and another exercise that's fantastic you need to be sitting up for doing that is you're going to push the tongue in the roof of your mouth and you'll see it in the beginning of my throat actually i'll pick this up so you can't i don't think you should be laying down to the up but you're going to push the tongue up in the roof of your mouth like this you can see my neck stabilizers working and from this side it might look like this you don't want to lift your chin from the side it always feels like you're elongating your neck you're not actually doing a chin tuck so that's one on one to help stabilize your neck get rid of pain these exercises i chose for you to eliminate the neck and headache pain that you're having because i'm seeing so much of that during the day and so many people in the office coming in they're having shoulder pain neck pain headaches and so much of it is related to how they're sitting on the plinth when i see them in my office and it's the way we hold ourselves that we don't know it's a problem we're just going about our day and so i want you all to call some attention to how you're holding yourself learn to improve your posture none of us are perfect so i work on my posture all day long and fortunately and unfortunately i had a car accident when i was 19 or 20 years old and i wasn't a physical therapist then i was an actuary in college and i actually was like forcibly holding myself up and trying to keep the books out here because anytime i dropped my head down i had terrible headaches and neck pain and i would sit and hold my head up when i was reading because i just couldn't i couldn't bend forward and then i became a physical therapist and i learned why so i'm kind of extrapolating all of my 25 years of experience with being a physical therapist as well as my 27 years of experience of being someone who's had a challenge with her neck uh with my x-rays and MRIs they don't look good at all but i get through my day and i do all my exercises and i feel good so that's kind of all that matters so i've got a bonus video for you this is a little routine that i i caught myself doing it at the beach i do it all the time and i thought when i was done with my workout let me just film it so everyone can just give themselves a little i say fascial stretch you're elongating not just your neck you're elongating your body we all get shorter as we age gravity does not take a day off at all so let's go to video number six well you'll see my little bonus quick stretch that you can do in the morning try this morning stretch to elongate your body lengthen your fascia and improve your posture so you're gonna reach up with one arm and reach for the side and breathe in so you can use your other hand to pull imagine lengthening at the side of your body here come back then you're gonna reach up the other side breathe in if you turn your head toward or away whichever is easier so your neck reach up breathe in and you're gonna clasp your hands behind your head pull upward at your neck and breathe in lift your left elbow up to the sky and breathe in push your left foot down into the floor and breathe in same thing lift up at the base of your head lift your right elbow up to the sky push your right foot down to the floor elongate that right side breathe in reach up grasp both elbows push your head back and breathe in lengthen your body to grow tall and breathe in now i rushed through that quickly when i was done with my beach workout and and because i was using uh selfie mode it reversed the right and the left but basically the elbow that is going to the sky when i said lift that elbow up and press the same side leg down like push your foot into the ground if you're standing it will elongate all those muscles it's very similar to the way a cat stretches i used to say that in the clinic all the time the the cats get up and they do one stretch and then they can jump like six feet in the air without pulling their hamstring and so they've got it down they've got that elongation stretch and also you don't need to grab your wrist and pull up immediately if you just reach up and breathe any elongate breathe elongate the pulling up just gives you a little bit more lift from your rib cage and a little bit more lift from your scapula so you can really grow tall it's an amazing amazing stretch so watch the videos again and again and watch your neck and your headache pain just dissolve so i want to thank everyone for joining us today i'd like to thank thank tech all our sponsors and donors for allowing us to bring this show to you today thank you very much and as always life is better when you listen to your physical therapist aloha everyone thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii if you like what we do please like us and click the subscribe button on youtube and the follow button on vimeo you can also follow us on facebook instagram twitter and linked in and donate to us at think.kawaii.com Mahalo