Is the way you breathing causing your neck pain? – Part 1

If you have had a treatment with us, we may have talked to you about importance of deep breathing,  if you have tension in your neck.

Shallow breathing, thoracic breathing, or chest breathing is the drawing of minimal breath into the lungs, usually by drawing air into the chest area using accessory muscles rather than throughout the lungs via the diaphragm.  This means that you over use some of the accessory muscles of breathing, including the scalenes and sternocleidomastoid muscles both of which are located in the side of the neck.  The scalenes elevate the 1st rib during inspiration and the sternocleidomastoid raises the sternum.  Unfortunately, these accessory muscles aren’t built for routine respiration, and they exhaust and eventually injure themselves which may result in pain and/or a reduced range of movement (i.e. inability to turn your head fully from side to side).

People shallow breath when they are nervous, stressed, anxious, or when they concentrate.  So simply stopping and taking one deep breath after you send each email, can reduce the over use of your scalenes and sternocleidomastoid.

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    1. Stand or lie down. Bend and straighten your elbow to its outer limits without creating pain. Repeat 5 to 10 times.
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