How Can I Fix Neck Pain at Work

If you work at a computer or desk and feel like your neck hates you, you’re constantly rubbing your shoulders or the back of your neck every two or three minutes in order to relieve the pressure and get rid of the tension and pain, then pay attention. We’ve also included 3 of our favorite exercises you can begin to implement immediately to get rid of the neck pain at work.

In this article I’ll break down the 3 best exercises for neck pain at your desk:

• Chin tucks
• Perfect work posture
• Foam roller

I’m going to explain why that’s happening, a quick and simple check up to make sure your position isn’t causing the problem, and then I’ll give you three of my favorite exercises to reduce and or eliminate that neck pain so you can get back to working comfortably and get on with your day.

We work with a lot of different people who are in an office setting or at a screen, and they’re doing it repeatedly day after day for many hours of the day.

Why Desk Work Creates Neck Pain

Most people who are working at their desks are blissfully unaware of the effects that are taking place inside their body, and more specifically, in their spine, as they sit all day.

The seated position isn’t inherently bad on its own. It’s just that we do it all the time. And especially when you’re working at a computer, or at a desk, you’ve got to understand the risks involved and what you can do to reduce or counter them.

To start, your head weighs about 12 pounds. However, every inch your head moves in front of your body, it adds 10 to 12 pounds of extra weight just because of gravity and the physics involved. So keeping your head back over your shoulders is a critical issue.

Secondly, as you sit in your seat, it’s hard for you not to begin to round. Your body isn’t designed to sit in a static position for long periods of the day, let alone 20 or 30 minutes. So as we start to extend that timeline, our body starts to warp and round.

Some of the more common things you’ll see is your hips and buttocks tuck under. As that happens, your shoulders and upper back round and lastly, your head drifts forward towards the computer screen. For five or ten minutes, not such a big deal. But do that day in and day out, you’re going to begin seeing significant structural change in your spine

What is a Normal Neck Curve?

The normal curve in your neck is supposed to look like a banana. It should curve similarly to it. However, as you start to get into a desk position, or an office worker position, you may start to change the structure of your neck and you’ll lose that curve.

That’s a problem for many reasons. One of the biggest is your spinal cord sits back there and it gets kinked. You’re also creating a ton of pressure on your neck and your shoulders, which is where a lot of that tension happens.

That’s why you feel the need to rub and try to massage your shoulders. That tension and pressure creates restriction not only in your spine but also the muscles around it. That’s where that hump or bump starts to develop on the back of your neck as well.

To reduce and alleviate that comes down to the position you’re sitting in every day, and then what you’re doing to counter the stress.

The Simple Ergonomic Check Up

This is my three step checklist you need to be running yourself through regularly throughout the day to make sure your body is in a healthy postural position.

Step 1: Ears Over Shoulders

First thing is your ears. Are they directly over your shoulders? They need to be.

That helps create that neck curve I mentioned. It takes pressure and load off your upper back and shoulders and places it directly on the neck muscles where it’s designed to go.

So, to drive this point home, are your ears over your shoulders? If not, your head is likely sticking out, bring it back.

Step 2: Shoulders Balanced and Elbows at 90 Degrees

Second step, are your shoulders balanced? Is one shoulder higher than the other? If so, bring it down. Keep yourself balanced as you work on the computer.

Sometimes this requires you to make sure that you are able to have your elbows at 90 degrees while you’re working on your keyboard.

If your shoulders are up, that’s a problem to reach your mouse. If your arms are down too low, that can also be a problem. Make sure your shoulders are balanced, and make sure your elbows are around a 90 degree angle.

Step 3: Head Facing the Monitor

Lastly, we get to your head. How is it positioned? Are you looking at a different monitor, or are you looking directly at the monitor in front of you? If there is a need to look over to the left or to the right, rotate your body, or your chair so you can look directly at the screen.

If you’re spending even twenty to thirty minutes daily looking at a fifteen degree angle off to the side, you’re going to create torque, pressure, and rotation in your neck that can cause problems long-term.

Even With Perfect Ergonomics, You’re Still Static

If you’ve gone through the ergonomic checklist and everything is complete and balanced, you can work in a better and more comfortable place for longer periods of the day and not cause so many problems.

But you’re still static. That’s a problem. It’s not ideal long term because our bodies weren’t designed to do this all day, every day.

You need to be countering the amount of static and stress you’re creating every day with exercises that help you reduce neck pain and discomfort, and also make sure you’re not promoting degeneration, arthritis, and structural core problems in your spine and nervous system.

So, here are my three favorite exercises you should start implementing to reduce neck pain at work and improve the function in your neck.

Exercise 1: Chin Tucks

In the checklist, I mentioned keeping your ears directly over your shoulders. In order to do that, it comes down to tucking your chin and pulling your head back. We call these chin tucks.

Whether you’re doing them while you’re working, or afterwards when you’re in your car, or at home watching a show, the best way to do them is to tuck your chin in and pull your head back, almost like you’re making a double chin.

Hold that position two, three, even five seconds, and then relax. Bring your head back out and then tuck it in again and repeat.

You’re not trying to strain your neck. You’re not trying to go one hundred percent. All you’re trying to do is activate your neck muscles at about fifty to sixty percent of your maximum intensity.

As you do that, you’ll release tension and tightness that builds up on your trapezius muscles. Its job is to keep your head from falling too far forward. This muscle is constantly engaged if you’re looking at a computer screen with your head forward.

To reduce that pressure, tucking your chin and pulling your head back allows the muscle to relax and reduces some of the tension you’re experiencing.

If nothing else, do ten chin tucks in a set, and do two or three sets throughout the day.

Foundation Understanding for Exercise 2

This one is my favorite exercise because it has so many aspects of your health that can improve by doing it. It helps neck pain at work, but it helps in a lot of other ways outside of just your cervical spine.

It has to do with posture and position.

If I told most people their posture was begining to round, they’d likely arch their back and sit up as straight as they could. That’s what your teacher, mom, and dad told you to do it. But it’s the opposite of how we want to do this.

When you arch like that, you flare your rib cage, open your chest, and you create pressure in your upper back, middle back, and lower back. It might help your neck, but it creates other problems long-term.

Exercise 2: Set Your Posture

First, engage by scooping your armpits forward. Unfortunately, most people don’t know what that means. To scoop your armpits forward means to turn on your lats, a.k.a. latissimus dorsi muscles on your back. Those muscles are important in stabilizing your shoulders and bringing things down.

Best way to describe this is to imagine you’re trying to pinch something down underneath your armpits.

Once you feel that tension, activate your shoulder blades and pull them down. You’re not shrugging the top of your shoulders down. You’re pulling your shoulder blades down.

Third, tuck your chin, and pull your head back, like you do in the chin tuck exercise.

Putting all those pieces together is how you improve, and keep good posture.

If your head is over your shoulders, your shoulder blades are pulled down, and your armpits are scooped, you are as bulletproof as you’re ever going to be from a postural point, which helps offset stress and pressure created while sitting at a desk.

It’s important to note, the only way to properly get into this position is to change your position. Stand up, set yourself, set your shoulders, set your armpits, set your head back, and then sit back down and get back to work. This position isn’t going to last forever. But you want to be doing this more than you’re not.

Use this outside your office too, in your car, at the grocery store, at home doing the dishes. Practice this position. That’s how you increase your level of health and reduce the pressure and tension in your neck.

Exercise 3: Lay Back on a Roll

The last exercise is something you can do at home.

Use a foam roller, or something firm and round. Place it behind your body with the top end behind your head at your skull and the bottom part on your tailbone.

It should run from a hard bone to another hard bone straight down your spine.

Lay on it with your knees bent and feet flat. Arms outstretched. Hold that position.

You can do it for between five-to-twenty minutes.

The purpose of this exercise is to open up your chest and shoulders and get into an extended position, which most people are not in, especially if they regularly work at a desk.

This position offsets a lot of the strain you create during the day and helps your body get back to square one, upright and balanced.

When your shoulders are rounding while sitting at the computer, that’s a stress position. We call it the fight or flight position. Your brain naturally adopts this posture when you’re state of stress for a long period of time.

Even if you were not stressing at work, if you’re in that rounded position, your brain is still triggered by the position and it releases stress hormones that go along with that response.

Getting on the roll puts you in the opposite position. It’s not fight or flight, instead it’s rest and digest. Where healthy rebuilding and repair processes happen.

Laying on something like that for five-to-twenty minutes helps increase the time you’re in rest and digest, giving your body more time to heal, more time to repair, and helping offset neck pain and discomfort.

What to Do Next

If you’ve got neck pain and you want to get rid of it, start with these exercises.

If you have questions, comment below. And if you think you may need some expert help to assist with your neck pain, we’d be happy to help you.