Stretches for your neck

Physical therapy

﻿Hi there, I hope you're having a good day. My name is Sophie Brazier. I'm a children's physiotherapist. Thank you for joining me today for our lesson in unit four. So we are in lesson four and this is all about stretching. And today we're going to take a closer look in this lesson at stretches for your neck. So before I show you a stretch and some ideas for stretches to do in that area, what I'm going to do first is do a little bit of a recap about why stretching is important. And then we'll go through some points to remember for stretching, and then we'll have a closer look at the activity. So for the stretching activity, you can just do it in a seated position. So I'm going to demonstrate here in a seated position and the options I'm going to give you, if you find that a bit difficult in sitting, you can also do a similar exercise in lying. So you don't need any equipment. You just need yourself. And if you do need some help from a parent or carer, perhaps you'd like to ask them now, and then we can make a start with our lesson. I would just like to give you a little message from our team. We, as therapists have tried to think of the best way to continue to support children, young people and their families. So you may be watching this as a child by yourself, or you might be with a parent or carer. We will be exploring topic areas that we regularly provide advice and support on across all ages and abilities. And each lesson, we will aim to give you some ideas and activities that can be carried out either at home or in school. You may already have specific programmes that you're using or advice that has been given to you by your child's school or therapist. So please make sure that you're using any information I'm giving you alongside anything you already have. And if you do have any questions or would like help tailoring this to their needs, then please make sure you get in contact with your local therapy service. We're going to start off by looking at why is stretching important, just to recap on what we've learned in previous lessons. So stretching as an instinctive action. Think about when you woke up this morning, did you stretch when you woke up to relieve some tension in your body and change your position, or have you yawned today or in the last couple of hours and have you stretched at the same time as yawning? Because it can't be quite an instinctive action to do. So it's almost part of what we do as a human being. And it's just really important to remember that those stretches can help relieve tension and help with your posture and lots of other things. So stretching is quite an important part of everyday routine, really. And if you think about it, we spend quite a lot of time in static postures. So this can lead to tight muscles and stiffness, and really stretching can help relieve some of this tension. And as I said before, regular stretching can just become part of your daily routine. So you don't have to spend hours stretching. You can build small stretches and small exercise into your day. And the last point here that I've spoken about before, remember to think about your breathing when you're stretching as this can really help calm your mind. So not only are you doing some stretching, but you're also calming your mind and the breathing techniques can also really help relax into those stretches and really calm you down as well, which is a good thing. Let's just go through the points to remember for good stretching. So some important things to think about, always follow the advice of your physiotherapist. So I want to point this out because you may have been given a stretching programme or some exercise ideas from a physiotherapist. And if you have, and you've got some stretches that you should be following and you've got them already set in your routine, then please make sure you stick to them. The ideas that I'm giving you, as I said before, are really just some general ideas and they're not specific for you, but if they work for you, then you can try them. But remember, if you do have a programme that you should be following, then make sure you stick to that first. So what you also need to think about is the best position to be in, to do the stretch that you're trying to do, or the area that you're trying to target. You want to think about your breathing. So try and relax and use some relaxed breathing techniques. Don't over force the stretch. So take it slowly, take it to where you feel the stretch. And if you want to apply a little bit of over-pressure, as I'm going to show you coming up, then you can, but it's not about taking the stretch, feeling pain. And that leads us into the last point, avoid pain. You only need to be feeling stretched so take it to where you can feel it, and then if you back off and come back in and use your breathing, you might be able to take the stretch a little bit further. So again, people might ask, how long should I be holding a stretch for? If you've been given stretches and you've been told such an amount of time because they work for you, then you should be doing it that way. So most of these stretches, I would say, I will guide you and tell you how long to hold them for, but for the ones we're going to be doing today, the neck stretches I would just say, stay there for about 10 seconds, between 10 and 30 seconds and then back off. But if it is better for you and feels nice to stay there for longer, then you can. So again, you should be guided by what you're feeling and the stretches should never be painful. So you just need to remember that. I'm just going to talk you through this activity of a stretch for your neck. And then I will demonstrate the activity for you and get into a little bit more detail. So you're going to be in a seated position. And what you're going to do is sit, and you're going to turn your head to one side and you're going to repeat on the other as well. So your starting position is sit in a comfortable and aligned position. So it's important that you're comfortable first try and keep your shoulders relaxed. So try that technique, I've given you before of taking a deep breath in and breathing out and letting your shoulders relax down and drop your shoulders to kind of release some of that tension. Then you want to tuck your chin in slightly. So I'll demonstrate that coming up. And then you're going to turn your head to look over your shoulder. So for example, I've said your right shoulder first, and then you can repeat on your left. Then you're going to hold the stretch, and repeat on the other side. And I suggest trying five times each side to start with, if you feel comfortable. And as I said before, there's no set time you need to hold the stretch for, maybe start off with 10 seconds and build that up. Or if you're finding the stretch enjoyable and you're getting some release from it, then maybe stay there for 30 seconds or longer. And what you can also do is breathe in as you start to move, then as you move into the stretch and you feel it, you breathe out. And what that can do is really help you enjoy the stretch a little bit more, and it can also calm you a little bit while you're doing it. So give that a try as well. I'll now take you through a demonstration of the neck stretch. I will also show you some ideas of how to extend and simplify as well, and then I'll talk them through afterwards properly. So to begin with you want to be in a seated position, then you want to make sure that you're in a good aligned position. You want to have your shoulders nice and relaxed. So if you feel like your shoulders are coming up here, just try and ease your shoulders down. Because I think quite often we can keep our shoulders quite tense and quite hunched. So try it. You could either do it in a mirror. It's quite a good way to do it so you can have a good view of what you're doing yourself. And then you can correct things. So a good way to try to relax your shoulders as well is to use your breath. So if you feel quite tense, take a deep breath in through your nose. So you're going to go and then breathe out through your mouth and just imagine that when you're breathing out, you're releasing some tension. So you can just do that as a nice starter. And then for the first neck stretch you can choose which side to start with. I'm going to look over my right shoulder. So I'm going to, you can try it by tucking your chin in. So when you do a chin tuck, you're just taking your chin backwards and then you're going to look over your shoulder. And then you're going to come back to the middle so you should feel a stretch down this side here. And then you're going to come back to the middle and then I'm going to go to the other side. So again I'm going to be feeling the neck stretch down here. And I'm going to come back to the middle. So you, the way you look, you'll feel it on the opposite side. And I would say, take it to where you feel a stretch, maybe stay there for between five and 10 seconds. If it feels comfortable to stay there longer, then do, but you don't need to stay there for a massive amount of time. And then come back to the middle and repeat five times. Please stop if it brings on any dizziness or any other things, you shouldn't feel any pain, you should just be feeling a nice stretch. And another idea to do is when you're going to have a different kind of stretch down the side here. So you're going to be taking your ear to your shoulder. So you want to again, keep your shoulders nice and relaxed. So you don't want to be doing this. What you want to be doing here is you're going to be taking your ear and you're bringing it down. So I'm going down this side, but where I'm feeling, the stretch is down this side of my neck. And then you're going to come to the middle and then you're going to go to the other side and what you can do as an extension of that, if you feel the stretch, but you don't quite feel you're getting a good enough stretch, you need to do this really gently, but you could apply a little bit of over-pressure. So say I take my ear down this way, I can then use my hand on this side and then I'll just get an increased stretch down this side. So that can be quite nice as well. And then I can try it the other way. So these ideas are quite nice to do in sitting. You could do them at your desk or when you're watching TV. If you've been sat in one position for a period of time, sometimes your neck can get a bit tense. I'll also show you a way of another extension of the stretch, where you can do a slightly different stretch for your neck, where you take your chin down to your chest. So this just gives you a good stretch down the back of your neck. So I will just demonstrate now. So you're going to be sitting in a comfortable position as you were for the other exercise. And then you take your chin down to your chest and you'll feel the stretch down the back of your neck. And then you're just coming back to centre. So from a side position, you are taking your chin down to your chest and then bring it back up. So you can take it to where you feel a stretch. And if you want to take it further towards your chest, you can, and you'll feel it down this part of your neck here and come back up. And if you do want to apply a little bit of over-pressure, you can use your hands just to guide your head gently. But I would suggest doing that one really slowly. So a way to simplify that activity is to try the stretches and a lying position. So the two that you can probably do in lying are the ones where you're taking your neck and you're rotating around. So you're turning side to side, and the other one where you're taking your ear down to your shoulder, they're probably the best ones to do in a lying position. And if you do need some help from a parent or carer, they could assist you with those stretches in lying, but let's just make sure that they are being done really carefully because you have to just protect your neck and be careful. So if you have a go at those ideas, see what works for you, whether you want some extensions or some easier versions. And if you then rejoined me afterwards, I can talk them through a little bit further for you. So now I'd like you to pause the video and have a go at that stretch. If you rejoin me afterwards, I'll talk you through some of the ways to extend and simplify as I demonstrated in the video. And as you saw in the video just there I went through some ways to extend and simplify. So I'll just go through them here because they're written down as well. So if you want to pause the video, to have a look at these while you do it, that might be handy. You can take your chin to your chest slowly and back up. So I showed you that one and remember to try and do this slowly, and you can also take your ear to your shoulder so this other side stretches your neck and the last point there for all the stretches you can apply some gentle over-pressure with your hand to increase the stretches, but do this carefully, please. And then for simplifying, you can do the first two that I showed you, and you can do them lying on your back. So you're turning your head to the side and your ear to your shoulder. And if you find it more comfortable in lying or you find it challenging in sitting, then do the one in lying and see how you manage. Okay? So give those ideas a try. Pause the video, and then rejoin me afterwards. SO that now brings us to the end of our lesson today. So thank you for joining me and I hope you enjoyed doing those stretches for your neck. I also think that you can build those into your day by just doing them in short bursts when you're in sitting, perhaps if you've been sitting at a computer for a period of time, watching some television, or just to relieve some general tension in the area around your neck. So they can't be a good idea to do at times when you've been sitting in one position for a period of time. So thanks for joining me, please join me next time for lesson five, where we would be continuing to work around the body and looking at another stretch. Take care of yourself, have a great day. And I will see you soon. Goodbye!

Stretches for your neck

Stretches for your neck

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