Preventing neck pain

In case you haven’t guessed yet, your work ergonomics could be the reason why you are having pains in different parts of your body. Various studies have found a link between computer use, posture while at work, sedentary lifestyle and chronic musculoskeletal pain. Neck pain has become a growing complaint from individuals that invest a significant amount of time working with all computers including tablets and telephones. Finding a way to prevent neck pain has become very important as a significant proportion of office workers with neck pain complain of reduction in their quality of life due to recurrent pain.

Neck exercises have been found to be effective in preventing neck pain in office workers. A study from Australia reported a decrease in the incidence of neck pain among office workers after exercising the neck muscles few times daily. This exercise regime is made up mainly of stretching and strengthening exercises for the neck muscles and is simple and easy to do with no special equipment just some determination.

Neck stretches

Neck Rotation: Sit in a chair, keeping your neck, shoulders and trunk straight. First, turn your head slowly to the right. (Move it gently to the point of pain if in pain). Move it back to the forward position. Relax. Then move it to the left. Relax. Repeat 10 times in each direction.

Neck Side Bend: Tilt your head so that your right ear moves toward your right shoulder. Then tilt your head so your left ear moves toward your left shoulder. Make sure you do not rotate your head while tilting or raise your shoulder toward your head. Repeat 10 times in each direction.

Neck Flexion: Bend your head forward, reaching your chin toward your chest. Hold for 5 seconds, repeat 10 times

Neck Extension: Bring your head back so that your chin is pointing toward the ceiling. Hold for 5 seconds, repeat 10 times.

Sitting in an upright position, put your right arm behind your back and gently grasp the right side of your head with your left hand to help tilt your head toward the left. You will feel a gentle stretch on your right side. Hold for 20 seconds, repeat 3 times. Complete the exercise on the other side.

Other important exercises for the neck are the retraction and nodding exercises. The retraction exercise is important as it retrains the muscles from the destructive protraction or forward head posture that most office workers adopt. The Journal of Physical Therapy indicates that the protracted posture causes overstress in the lower part of the neck and degeneration in discs. To retract the neck, sit upright looking straight ahead and then pull the head backwards until the ears are nicely on the shoulders and you feel some pull at the back of the neck. Hold for 30seconds. Do this once every hour.

The second exercise is the nodding and this exercise helps to stabilise and retrain the deep neck flexor muscles which are noted to have impaired functions in people with neck pain.  This exercise is proven to almost have an immediate pain relief response and is quite helpful when in pain. To carry out this exercise, retract the head as described above and then in the retracted position carry out small nodding movements without looking down fully.

Nkiru Jibuaku , is a British trained Physiotherapist. She currently works as a Senior Physiotherapist in Lagos and can be reached on  [email protected]