Woke up with a sore neck again? There’s a good chance it wasn’t your pillow. Your neck pain, especially if you’re experiencing it frequently and chronically, could be a sign of bad neck posture. This neck pain could even lead to you experiencing headaches and fatigue.
When your head and neck posture is off, unnecessary weight is exerted on the muscles in your neck and upper back, which makes them work harder to hold your head up. There are a lot of factors in your daily life that can contribute to you having poor neck posture, including: being hunched over a computer all day at work, watching tv for too long, holding the phone up to your ear with your shoulder, long drives, and lifting weights.
Go to a Chiropractor if You Experience Frequent Neck Pain
If you’re feeling pain and pressure in your neck often, get it checked out. When your neck alignment is off, your neck is more prone to injury and degenerative effects. If you continue to ignore painful symptoms, you can potentially get bulging discs and begin to feel worse.
Forward head and shoulder posture is the most common alignment problem for people. With this misalignment, the neck is slanted forward in front of the shoulders. With time, this misalignment can also lead to upper back pain, shoulder pain, and several degenerative neck and disc issues.
With this misalignment, the scalene muscles (help rotate the neck), the suboccipital muscles (help rotate the head), the pectoralis minor muscles, the subscapularis muscles, and the levator scapulae muscles all become tight and cause a person to feel pain.
What should you do if you’re experiencing frequent neck pain? There are a few things you can do yourself, but it's in your best interest to visit Dr. Wayne Gordon, a chiropractor in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. A chiropractor, or doctor of chiropractic medicine, can assess your neck pain and related symptoms, even take and evaluate x-rays, to determine the cause of your neck pain. Through chiropractic adjustments, a chiropractor can help straighten out the forward head posture, which will reduce pain and the development of any deterioration or compression in the spine.
At home and work, you can practice stretching exercises to keep your neck and back limber throughout the day. You want to help remove the tension from those areas. Also, get up and move more often – sitting in one position for too long can tighten up the muscles listed above. Work on standing and sitting with good posture. If you hunch over a lot, this will force your neck posture to continue to go forward. Keep your head upright, back straight, and shoulders back.
Get Your Neck Pain Checked by a Chiropractor in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fl
Dr. Wayne Gordon and his team at Gordon Family Chiropractic in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fl, offer a non-invasive approach to healing your neck pain. No referral is needed. If you’ve been suffering from neck pain, it’s time to get it treated by a chiropractor in Ponte Vedra Beach. To request an appointment, click our chiropractor in Ponte Vedra Beach contact page or call 904-418-3937