FEELING GREAT: My three top tips to help with your neck and shoulder pain

“Most people think when they get neck or shoulder pain, the pain will simply go away on its own: It doesn’t work like that!”

After some of you got in touch, this week I’m going to go into more detail about it.

Shoulder tension and neck stiffness often creeps up on you with zero warning. There’s sometimes no explanation as to why you might all of a sudden wake up one morning with an annoying neck pain.

Most people think when they get neck or shoulder pain, the pain will simply go away on its own. That they’ll wake up one morning and, like magic, it’ll be as if it never happened. Let me tell you a trade secret: It doesn’t work like that!

Here’s my top three tips to help with your neck and shoulder pain.

1: Use ice to stop pain

Ice is by far the best way to ease the pain. Use ice whenever you’re feeling achy or painful, such as at the end of a very busy day. Apply an ice pack for 10 minutes or so, little but very often (every hour).

And when should you use heat? I’d recommend applying a hot water bottle on a morning when your neck and shoulder is likely to be feeling more stiff, rather than painful. Again, 10 minutes should do it.

2: Sleep with one pillow

Now this may be difficult at first, especially if you are used to two pillows. And I know a lot of you have a favourite pillow!

However, if you can persist, using just one lowers the amount of stretching and tension that is happening around your neck.

Frequent headaches, migraines, and constant shoulder tension are a sign of spending eight hours every night in the wrong position.

Drop down to one soft pillow and wait to see the difference.

3: Avoid reading for more than 20 minutes in bed

Your head looking forwards and down at a book is increasing tension in muscles. It’s a bit like stretching an elastic band too far – eventually it will fray and become damaged.

Worse, at this late time in the day, your muscles are already tired and weak so placing them under even more tension, will make more strain and headaches inevitable.

A big thank you to the readers who got in touch for their free copy of The Healthy Habit book, we’ve got some more to give away! Please call (01429) 802037 to get yours.