3 Simple Ways You Can Prevent Neck Pain
by Julia Gregory
If you've ever had a pain in the neck, you probably already know that neck pain can significantly impact your day-to-day quality of life. Fortunately, minimizing or preventing everyday neck pain often involves quick, easy fixes. Following are three simple strategies for relieving neck pain.
Consider Getting a New Pillow
If your neck pain is most noticeable the first thing in the morning, chances are good that it's your pillow that's causing the problems. Your pillow should provide firm support for your neck as well as keep it in a neutral position that does not force the neck to deviate from its natural curve. A variety of pillows exist to help prevent and minimize neck pain. For instance, orthopedic pillows maintain the neck's normal curve, or you can get a pillow filled with water so that the weight of your head and neck are distributed evenly. You can customize water pillows to match your own individual needs and preferences by adding or removing the amount of water. Other pillow options include feather pillows, which provide soft surfaces that can be easily molded to the shape of your neck and head.
Practice Ergonomics at Work or in the Home Office
Even if you don't use a computer as a matter of routine at your job or for schoolwork, you probably nonetheless spend significant time online catching up with friends and family on social media, watching Netflix, and doing home-office activities such as paying bills. Practicing ergonomics at work and in the home office will help keep neck strain to a minimum. Make the screen high enough so that you're not looking down at it. Your eyes should be roughly in line with the area two inches below the top of the screen. Also, make certain that you monitor is placed at a comfortable viewing distance—about an arm's length away from your body.
Stay Hydrated
There are many good reasons for staying properly hydrated throughout the course of the day, and now there's one more—drinking enough water may help prevent neck pain by keeping body tissues from dying out. Keeping a bottle filled with fresh, clean water close at hand while at work or home will help keep the spongy structures, called discs, between the individual vertebra in your neck pliable and strong.
Please feel free to contact your local pain-management doctor for more information on how you can minimize or prevent neck pain. Visit sites such as http://swfna.com to find professionals near you.
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About Me
The decision to move one of my parents into assisted living was one of the most difficult I have ever made. I had extreme feelings of guilt that led to me being at the facility with my parent practically around the clock. It took a few months before I realized that I could not let my own life fall apart from the guilt I was feeling. I also learned that my parent was fine without me constantly hovering around. Since that time, I have had several friends express similar feelings of guilt. I started this blog to help others in the same situation understand not only their feelings about assisted living, but those of their parents.