Naturally Simply Ways to Get Rid of Neck Pain, without Pain Meds

We have all done it. After a late night of watching tv or maybe having a little too much to drink we pass out. We pass out in an anything but ideal position. Even sleeping while sitting up, and then falling asleep. Whatever the position, it can cause neck pain. You may also have

- muscle spasms in the neck

- cannot turn your head in a certain direction

- numbness in your hand or arm

- tingling in your hand or arm

- soreness or achiness in the neck

A hot shower can really help tightened muscles. Just let the hot water hit your neck and upper back area for 3-5 minutes. Don't put your neck into a position of pain. Do some very gentle neck stretches such as bringing your head forward, backwards and to both sides. Hold each stretch for 1-2 minutes.

When doing these gentle exercises try not to over do it. Do not do the stretch to the point of pain, only to the point of feeling a stretch. The warmness of the shower water will help with this as well.

Neck Traction basically means giving your neck a gentle stretch. You may have had neck traction at your chiropractor's office or physical therapists office. For many patients the gentle stretch of the neck feels great.

There are many ways to do neck traction. You might have tried neck traction at your chiropractor's office or physical therapist's office:

- you can lay on a towel roll (See video below)

- you can lay on a wedge such as a soothe-a-ciser- lay on this wedge for 10-15 minutes.

- you can use a pillow at night such as the arc4life cervical traction neck pillow

There are so many misconceptions about going to the chiropractor:

• Its going to hurt
• It going to make my condition worse
• They cannot help me
• They cannot give me any pain relief

These are all misconceptions. Yes chiropractic can help you- there are so many techniques out there, that you have to ask and really find out what its about. There are so many advantages to chiropractic treatment: The biggest one being that there are no side effects of treatment. There is no medication to dispense, or surgery to be recommended. Overall, i have had great benefits for neck pain by going to a chiropractor. They align my spine and offer pain relief. Treatment takes hardly anytime and the effects of the getting my spine aligned help me with all of my activities of daily living.

By this I mean, don't sleep on a flat pillow. Using a contoured neck pillow is actually healthy for your cervical spine. It allows the bones to be properly aligned. A normal neck curve has a natural C Curve. When you don't have a C curve, the professionals call it a straight neck or a loss of cervical curve. Overtime this can even result in a hunchback posture look- you know the "hump in the back".

To figure what your neck looks like, an xray is needed. Often times, this will be seen on an lateral x-ray that shows you what the side of your neck looks like - a Side profile picture.

One was to work on getting this proper curve in the neck is to sleep on a contoured neck pillow. Here are 5 examples of pillow that have a contour in them. If you are interested in them, just google the names on the internet:

1. The Arc4life Cervical Linear Traction Neck Pillow
2. The TriCore Cervical Support Neck Pillow
3. The Stress Ease Neck Pillow
4. The Arc4life Linear Gravity Neck Pillow
5. The D Core Neck Pillow

Remember that when using any contoured neck pillow, it can take a while to get used to. Yes for some lucky people, they can sleep on it the first night and they are good to go. They get a great night's sleep and dissipation of their neck pain. For others, it can take some time. You are putting your neck into a different position at night for sleeping. These means you are engaging different neck muscles. Just like working out at the gym, using a new contoured neck pillow can cause some soreness, stiffness and overall general pain.But stick with it. Use your contoured neck pillow for 15 minutes the first night, 25 minutes the next night, then 35 minutes the night after that. Keep increasing the amount of time you are sleeping on the pillow. Get your neck muscles slowly used to using a neck pillow.

Check out this Hub if you are looking to Change The Pillow you are sleeping on - Making the best decision on which neck pillow is best

Yes, there are special techniques or ways to do things to get rid of your neck pain faster and more easily. Here are a couple ways the pros can get rid of the problems and most people are glad to pay hundreds of dollars for.

And I know you're willing to do it. Why? Because, you can sit through an important meeting at work, maybe cook diner? Maybe even just get a decent night's sleep...

So here goes:

Technique 1: Trigger point massage. That muscle that really hurts will often have knots in it or what seems like a hard marble of tied up muscle. You see muscle fibers glide across one another to get their motion. When their all bound up, this doesn't happen, and it often hurts and inflammation accumulated. So get on one of those tight spots and press down as hard as you can with your thumb or hand. Do this a few times for about 5-10 seconds then repeat on another tight spot.

Technique 2: Stretch the muscle, and rub or strip the muscle while in this position. Let's take an example of the lateral neck. The right side is painfully tight, what do you do?

Tilt the head left (this stretches the right), and while in that position, take your thumb, or hand, or even knuckles and run it up and down that muscle, "stripping" it out. It help to do this technique with a massage gel, or soap in the shower; anything that will prevent skin burning.