So you've heard of a Bad Hair Day, but how about a Bad Neck Day?
Your hair can cause more than just anguish about your overall look, but can also be contributing to that sore, stiff neck you're walking around with! It may seem strange to comprehend, but your hair style can actually have an impact on your posture, and subsequently any pain/discomfort you experience. Read our Bad Neck Day Blog Post to find out more about styling your hair to feel better. So you normally choose your hair style to complement your "look", or sometimes you just throw it up to keep it out of your way and make activities a bit easier, but we bet you didn't realise that your choice of hairstyle could be putting strain on your neck by altering your posture! The "Mid-Pony Tail" The classic easy pony tail...pull your hair back, wrap a band around it, and 'voila', your hair is out of your face and you look somewhat more 'put together'. But wait, your neck is feeling sore, and you're only a few hours in to your day, all you've done is drive to work and sit at a desk for a little while...you think back to how you slept, did you feel your neck during the night? or did you wake up with that sigh of "ughhh" as you turned your head on the pillow? Nope it wasn't that, and it wasn't anything else you can really pin point.
So what could it be? This "what could it be" is the never ending question when it comes to identifying causes of our day to day pain and discomfort; from bad sleeping positions and dodgy pillows, to high levels of stress, coming very short on the 8 glasses of water you're meant to get down you, all the way to questionable posture! Then more often than not, it's a not-so-perfect storm of all of these factors.
So how do you make it all better?
How do you fix things up so you don't have to grunt through your day complaining about your sore neck and the lingering headache that normally accompanies it? Action, is what is needed; you have to tackle all these things compounding on each other, affecting your neck (and your shortened temper if we're honest); but action can be overwhelming, especially with so many things to address!
Stay tuned to our posts though, we can help you on your journey to improving these factors, and coming out the other end as a much happier, more upright, and less uncomfortable individual. For now, let's get back to the point of how that Mid-Pony Tail is being a pain in the neck... Our body relies on our posture to be as ideal as possible in order to be functional and allow all parts to work in harmony. When our posture is out of alignment, strain is put on our body; our musculoskeletal system has to work so much harder, and often in ways it's not made to. This 'dysfunction' is often a root cause of many of our aches and pains. Better posture = Better Movement/Function = Reduced Pain/Discomfort A good sitting posture means that our ear is in line with our hip, but for many of us (especially those loooong hour office workers) our head jutts forward, the chin sticks out, and our ear is closer to being in line with our knees than our hips. This "Forward Head Posture" affects the curvature of the cervical spine (the neck) and puts strain on all of those neck muscles as well as the ones connecting to them (of which there are really a lot). So now go sit in your car, or in your office chair, with that cute mid-pony tail and try to sit upright, pushed in to the back of your chair with your ear placed vertically above your hip (we'll pop a visual below just to help you out)...
Yupp, your hair is stopping you! It's created a barrier between your head and the back of your seat, which forces that neck & head into the not-so-lovely forward head posture!
It's hard enough remembering to get in to and maintain that correct posture, without an actual physical barrier stopping you! So next time you grab your hair brush and hair band, think a bit differently about how you're going to tie your hair up, and where you will position it on your head. Stuck on that style though, as it's all that matches that look you're going for? No problem, just practice it enough that you can quickly whip your hair in to that style once you're out of your car/out of your seat, let it instead hang loose or in a super low pony-tail in the meantime. As we said above, stay tuned for more posts on how to fine tune your posture, & info on how Forward Neck Posture affects you. We'll even delve in to the connection with the 'hump' that we sometimes find at the back of the neck, as well as the chronic headaches and jaw issues that go hand in hand with this postural dysfunction. Even better than just all the info, if you can get to us at our practice, Medissage, in Pretoria Gauteng, then we can help you with Deep Tissue and Trigger Point Massage to undo the muscle & fascia dysfunction, release all those knots that built up and coach you through the whole posture correction process in person! Not local or able to get to Pretoria? That's fine, we get it, just find yourself a reputable massage therapist capable of giving a top quality deep tissue massage that also addresses the trigger points and fascia dysfunction in your area; search "Deep Tissue and Trigger Point Massage near me".
