3 Movements to Reduce Tension in Your Neck and Shoulders

With the holidays, daily stressors and time behind a computer, our neck and shoulders can start telling us that they're feeling some things.

You've tried the stuff we all try: stretching and getting some sort of massage, but the 'release of tension' never seems to last very long. Sure there is some release after you stretch or have someone's hands give your neck some attention, but not matter what it keeps coming back.

Often what our body needs in a scenario like this is approaching the tension from a different angle.

So let's dive in with some different approaches.

Breathing

Yep, breathing. Most specifically diaphragmatic breathing, or deep belly breathing. This way of breathing taps into our parasympathetic nervous system which helps reduce muscle tension throughout the body.

Try this breathing exercise a few times a day. You could take a moment to reset after something stressful, after long periods of sitting or being stationary, or when you notice your neck and shoulders. I personally like to also add it to my warm-up before I exercises to help focus on my workout.

Perform 5-10 breaths. Whatever feels best for you in calming down the stress or tension.

I demonstrate this breathing exercise lying down as it is the easiest way to feel the connection with your diaphragm and pelvic floor, but if you are in a public space feel free to do this sitting.

Foam Rolling

Foam rolling most specifically your upper back muscles and your lats. Your lats are the large muscles on your back that I generally refer to as the back side of your armpits.

Why just the upper back muscles?

Well, some connect along your spine in your neck or even the base of your skull and some of the muscles connect around your shoulder. So, foam rolling all the upper back and lats is really getting to the main parts of the muscles that are running across your shoulders and neck.

You can add foam rolling as part of you wake up routine, your bedtime routine, as part of your workout or any time you like. Play around with it. You can also foam roll more than one time a day if you like. But beware of the foam rolling black hole, more of a good thing isn't always a good thing. Roll only 20-30s on each muscle.

Tips for foam rolling is to roll soft tissue and not your bones and remembers to breath while foam rolling. If you hold your breath as you roll over something that is a bit uncomfortable, this is a signal to your body to continue to hold onto that tension and not let it go.

This video demos a full body routine. The upper back and lats are the first two places I go over in detail.

Strengthen

Sometime muscles are tight because they are actually overstretched and feeling the tension of the muscle saying "eeeeeek". I know for me this was the case with my neck and shoulder tension. My shoulder blades were actually sitting a little too low on my rib cage due to really taking on the messaging of 'shoulders back and down'. I spoke a little about this in this post.

Also, for most of us our upper traps, the muscles we feel right under our skin on our necks, tend to like to do all the work-even the work that isn't their responsibility. And then our mid and lower traps tend to not do so much work for reasons like maybe we're sitting behind a computer or other postural deviations that puts these muscles in a position to not do their fair share of the work.

This last exercise is to focus on the lower traps. The upper traps are involved as are other muscles around your shoulder, but we want to focus on trying to lift from the middle/bottom of the shoulder blade. This one can take time to really "get."

This exercise can be performed anytime you feel tension in your neck, as part of your fitness routine or part of a self care routine. Do one to three sets of 5-10 reps. I would start on the lower end of the sets/reps to really focus on the form and finding the lower traps.

Putting it all together

You can certain do all three of these movements one right after the other. They could be part of your fitness routine throughout your week. Or you could add them to a self care routine that you do in the morning or the evening. But you can also add these anytime in your day that you feel your neck would benefit from doing them. It up to you. You know your needs and your life best.