How to combat neck pain (after a bad nights sleep!)
Ahh, yes. The age where sleeping is considered a sport and you can OFFICIALLY get injured from it. This blog is going to be discussing why this may be happening, and how to relieve that post sleep pain.
Have you ever felt a sharp, straight line of pain that runs up or down a body part while doing your warm up stretches or when you've just gotten out of bed? This could be a nerve!
One
First of all, it's not your age!! When we start to notice more pain from doing not-so-hard things (like sleeping), it's usually a result of a few factors at play. The first being your quality of sleep. As we know, sleep is key to recovery and rejuvenation for our bodies. If you're getting less than 7 hours sleep as an adult, it may be time for you to juggle some things around to start prioritizing your sleep quantity AND quality. As a mom to a 4 month old, I get that it can sometimes be near impossible to get this length and quality right, but as long as you are trying & staying consistent with your bedtime and wakeup routines, your body will begin to work itself out.
Two
The second factor at play is your activity during the day. When we are kids, we are moving constantly! We are bending down, playing, jumping and running. As adults, we are most likely sedentary during majority of our day. You might get out for an hour or two for some activity, but a good chunk is spent sitting or working (which is usually not great for our postures!).
Three
The third factor I'm going to mention today is the way we start our day. We all want to have that slow, stress-free morning routine where we drink our warm coffee and read a book... but that's not you, is it?! You might spring out of bed ready for your morning run, or get straight into getting the kids ready, or get onto your computer to start work. Your body isn't given that time it deserves to go from a sleeping state to a get-er-done state. When this happens, your muscles and tissues can cease up (on a micro level) and stay that way until you address it. Hence, the pain cycle.
So if you resonate with any of these factors I've mentioned, and you suffer from the post-sleep neck pain every now and then (or maybe more often than not), here are some ways to relieve that pain.
Light stretching of a morning You've probably been told to do this before by your health practitioner, and there's good reason why. By introducing light stretches into your morning routine, you give your nervous system, muscles and tissues time to 'wake up'.
Mobilize your tissues during the day Get up and move around as much as possible. Don't be lazy with your movements either! Bend from the knees, don't cut any corners and create bad habits that will catch up to you one day (maybe that's today and why you're reading this?)
Heat packs/ anti-inflammatories To manage pain, in my opinion, heat and anti-inflammatories work great. They take away that sharp, achy pain that can keep you from doing your day-to-day activities AND allow you to perform the first 2 points above without feeling any restriction.
If you try these and still need help to manage your pain, please seek a health practitioner who can examine, test and prescribe the correct home care for you and your body.
Let's live pain-free, together!