Working from home has led to a massive increase in headaches and neck pain in our office. Most people have learned how to work on a laptop with terrible posture for 8+ hours a day. This new demand on the muscles and joints of the neck and shoulders creates muscle breakdown that leads to angry muscle knots.
Most Common Problems
A number of problems in the neck can develop from this WFH shift, but most commonly we’re seeing headaches and sprain/strain injuries of the neck.
What is happening?
As you use a muscle, you break it down. The most obvious view of this is when you exercise or lift weights, but this also occurs to a lesser scale when you hold certain postures for long periods of time. Adapting to a new workstation or lack of a workstation can force you to hold your head and neck in bad postures for 8+ hours a day while working. Overtime, those muscles used to hold that posture cannot keep up with the demand. Your body responds by laying down scar tissue and forming muscle knots or adhesions. After a few weeks, this becomes that muscle knot that you can never seem to stretch out. Since these muscles attach to joints in the neck and upper back, any excessive tightness will lead to a change of force on those joints. This combination of change in muscle tension and joint motion lead to a change in your ability to move your head or neck, that crunchy or popping sound when you move, and achy and sometimes sharp pain.
How to fix neck pain after working from home:
Step 1: Decrease your pain levels and inflammation for neck pain relief
Step 2: Fix your workstation posture by setting up your desk ergonomically to relieve neck pain
Step 3: Strengthen your postural muscles for neck pain relief
Step 1:
Active Release Technique for Headaches
Hands on, focused deep stretching muscle treatment. In ART, specific pressure is applied to the problematic muscles of the neck and shoulders to help improve motion of your body’s connective tissues (muscles, ligaments, fascia). Working in less than optimal posture creates microtrauma in the tissues that typically leads to adhesions between the muscular and fascial layers of the body. Active release technique at Boulder Sports Chiropractic helps to decrease muscle tension and restore normal movement or glide between the fascial layers.
Graston Technique for Neck Pain
Using a stainless steel tool, we can breakdown muscle knots and restore normal connective tissue integrity. This tool is excellent at crossing over multiple muscles and fascial layers to breakdown tightness. This is a wonderful tool for neck pain relief and decreasing headache tightness in Boulder, Colorado.
Dry Needling for Neck Pain and Headache Relief
When we need to release specific trigger points or deeper layers of muscle that we cannot get to with typical hands on techniques, we can use acupuncture needles in a technique called dry needling. The very small needle feels similar to a mosquito bite, sometimes you feel a little something while other times you feel nothing. The needle creates micro cuts in the muscle to help release the tension. Following the treatment, your immune system senses new trauma in that area and sends new nutrients to that area to help heal the lesion we just created. This helps to promote normal recovery and muscle health.
Deep Tissue Massage Therapy
Our Boulder Massage therapist will spend 60 or 90 minutes with you to thoroughly work through your tight muscles and get those knots out. Using specific deep tissue techniques, our massage therapists can comfortably work out some of the connective tissue tightness to free up some of your normal range of motion and decrease inflammation in the area.
Step 2:
Fixing your workstation posture is very important so that you are not continuing to irritate those muscles
Learn more about how to set up your workstation by clicking here to read our blog.
Step 3:
Strengthen your postural muscles
Often people who are attempting to change their posture will report feeling like their new natural posture is to slouch and feel as if they’re being pulled forward through their chest. This is often due to muscle tightness in the muscles that create internal rotation of your shoulders (pecs, lats, etc). In office, we are going to work to release all of that tightness that is pulling you forward using the above methods. The next step is to strengthen postural muscles that help to hold your shoulders, upper back, and neck in an optimal, neutral position. The muscles we typically need to activate and strengthen are your middle and lower trapezius, your rhomboids, serratus anterior, and deep neck muscles.
Our Boulder physical therapist can help you identify your weaknesses and eliminate them with specific targeted exercises. She will first spend an hour with you to perform a full exam and then lay out her recommendations for fixing it. Follow up sessions are either 45 minutes or 1 hour and are always 1-on-1 with the physical therapist. Likely a full workout, you will not be standing in the corner doing a band exercise for 10 minutes by yourself.