How to Decompress YOUR NECK for Instant Pain Relief

in this video i'm going to show you how to decompress your neck at home for instant pain relief stay tuned hey everyone dr rowe coming to you from spinecare in st joseph michigan in this video we're going to do decompression exercises that is pulling motions known as traction to take pressure stiffness tightness and pain out of the neck very quickly you may find that this will help even in as little as 30 seconds it's going to be broken down into a two-part process in the first part it is known as the no special equipment needed method that is you can do these in the comfort of your own home using no equipment in the second part we're going to do banded traction with a pull-up band it's going to just allow us to relax even more and let a pull-up band do all of the hard work for us all of these exercises again can be done at home they're very easy and effective so let's get started and decompress the neck right now for instant pain relief this decompression exercise is what i like to call the fist method and it's one of the easiest ways to self-traction your neck you can pretty much do it anywhere at home at work standing or seated so it's pretty much the anywhere stretch let's start off by making a fist place it underneath the chin just like this and then do a chin tuck that is taking the chin down towards the sternum enough pressure should be placed into the fist that this right here is a nice stable anchor point from the chin all the way down to the sternum let's take the other hand and then feel at the back of the head you'll find two large bumps at the base of the skull that's going to be our contact point so let's make a cup with our hand go right over that area and hook into it so it shouldn't be able to slip the movement from here is going to be very simple i'm going to press down into my fist while the other hand does a cupping motion and then just kind of glides up like this so it brings the head forward when you do this you're going to feel a great stretch into the neck a very good traction only go to a comfortable stretch once we hit that point let's hold this for 15 to 20 seconds from there you can relax take a breather and then on the next repetition try to drive a little bit more down into that fist and then kind of cup and bring the head forward just a little bit more to challenge yourself to decompress and open up those spinal joints even more but you want to do this one for three to five complete repetitions with this decompression exercise i'm going to show it in two parts the first one i'm just going to use my hands in the second one i'm going to use an everyday hand drying towel i'm going to start off on my knees so make sure to put a towel or pillow underneath them for extra comfort we need a flat elevated surface depending on your height level you can go from something from a bed a desk all the way down to a sturdy chair one without wheels find one that just fits your height level the best let's go up to that flat elevated surface what i'm going to do from there is bend my elbows like this place them on that surface so it's a nice stable anchor point i'm going to then cup my hands like this feel off to the side of the back of the skull pretty much right behind the ears you'll find two large bumps let's cup that right there and we want to make sure that it has a little bit of a tension in there because we're going to pull up with this exercise from there i'm going to tuck my chin towards my chest and then i'm going to pull up with my hands hook the back of those bumps i should say on the back of the skull and then from there i'm going to lower my butt down towards my heel when you do this you're going to feel a great stretch happening into the upper back throughout the neck itself pretty much all the way up to the base of the skull only go down as far as you feel comfortable once you hit a very comfortable stretch hold this position for about 15 to 20 seconds from there you're just going to relax take a breather and then repeat this one up to five times with each repetition drive down just a little bit further to get a better decompression stretch to take pressure out and hopefully get more relief in the second part we're going to use a hand drying towel and you might find that this one works just a little bit better it's very similar to the first exercise but instead i'm going to take my towel place it on the back of the head right over those two bumps so this is what's going to hook instead of using our hands let's go back to that elevated surface what i'm going to do from here is i'm going to pull forward with the two ends to create an initial tension you don't want any pretty much slack in there let's do a complete chin tuck all the way down towards the chest and then from there what i'm going to do is pull on the two ends up towards the ceiling as much as i can angle them up while keeping the elbows flat on that surface from there lower the butt down towards your heels and when you do this you're going to feel a great stretch happening throughout the neck into the upper back go down as far as you feel comfortable once we hit a very comfortable stretch again hold this one for 15 to 20 seconds from there you're just going to relax take a breather and then on the next repetition try to pull up towards the ceiling even more and lower your butt down towards your heels to get an even better stretch three two five complete repetitions this decompression exercise is great because not only is it going to target the neck but pretty much the full back itself we're going to start off on an elevated flat surface the edge of a bed works you can also use a couch i'm going to place a pillow or small towel underneath my stomach right here for extra comfort we want to position ourselves where our legs and our hips are going to be off the edge our hips our knees are going to be in a nice straight line going down i'm also going to be on my toes just like this you want to be nice and relaxed in this position you should already start to feel gravity pulling on your lower back into the hips to offer us a nice back decompression stretch how we're going to target the neck a little bit more is i'm going to take a hand drying towel and place it on the back of the neck let's take two fingers feel off to the sides at the base of the skull you'll find two large bumps right behind the ears that's going to be our contact point so let's take our towel place it right below those and hook forward with them for a nice stable contact point from there i'm going to go up on my elbows just like this i'm going to tuck my chin towards my chest as much as i can and then i'm going to take the two ends with the towel and pull forward with my hands when you do this you're going to feel a great stretch happening at the base of the skull into the neck all the way down into the back keep pulling forward as much as you can to get a very comfortable stretch once we hit that point let's hold this one for 15 to 20 seconds from there you can relax take a breather and then repeat this one up to three to five times with each repetition always challenge yourself to pull forward even more to get a better traction stretch into the neck to help decompress it even more this is what i like to call the water bottle method because we're going to use a water bottle in gravity to do all of the hard work for us let's lay on our back at the edge of a bed you can also do this on a couch if you do feel it is firm enough and also if you don't have a water bottle just use a rolled up towel instead but just keep going back like this until you feel your head just start to slowly go off the edge let gravity just take the weight of the head downwards really try to relax with this one the more you relax the more results you're going to get but once you feel a very comfortable traction stretch into the neck hold this position for an extended period of time you can hold it for 30 seconds upwards towards a minute but when you need a breather just slide back forward but try to do this one for about three to five repetitions if you want to take this one to the next level what we can do is take a fist and just place it underneath our chin and dry forward with it this will intensify that stretch that traction into the neck only go to your comfort level but again you can hold this one for an extended period of time and try to do a couple repetitions with each repetition drive just a little bit further into it to increase that traction that decompression stretch if this does aggravate the jaw a little bit or if you do have tmj instead of placing it on the jaw take two fingers or i should just say your fingers right here place them on the temple like this and then just push forward instead you might find that that is just a little bit more comfortable but just try to let gravity take the head down as much as you can and get a very comfortable decompression stretch over that water bottle so one of the easiest and best ways to decompress your neck is to use banded traction i'm going to be using a pull-up band for this you can buy these locally at a sporting goods department you can also get them online if you would like to get them online i will leave a link in this video's description what i'm going to do is take the band and i'm going to loop it on the other side of the door on the nord op and then close the door so it's nice and tight and it won't come back and pretty much whack us in our face so to start off with let's do a couple things to get better results with this exercise the first being let's have our body in line with this band we don't want to be off to left or the right just a nice straight pull the second thing let's place something underneath our neck to allow our neck to just better relax during this exercise because the more you relax the better results you will get i'm using a water bottle if you don't have one just use a towel roll it up place it underneath your neck what i'm going to do from there is place the band off to the side right here i should say the back of the skull feel at the base of the skull right here you'll find two large bumps right on the back of the ears you want to hook that band right at those bumps and place the band right here behind the ear so it's not pulling on the ears either you don't want any discomfort so once we're in position what i'm going to do from there is just simply go down with my body weight use your legs to just pull yourself away from the door the more that you do this the more intense the pull is going to be with the band you should really start to feel a traction being built into the neck only go to your comfort level and once we hit a very comfortable stretch what you want to focus on doing is relaxing as much as you can do nice slow controlled breathing read a book use an iphone anything like that but you just want to relax hold this position for about 30 seconds but if you do feel comfortable you can hold it for longer a minute a couple minutes anything like that but when you need a breather just push yourself back up with your legs you want to do this for about five complete repetitions with each repetition drive down just a little bit further to get a better decompression stretch into the neck how you can take this one to the next level is to incorporate a little bit more movement into the neck while doing this exercise so rotate a little bit towards your left that is kind of like looking over your left shoulder when you do this you're going to feel the muscles in the neck get activated just a little bit differently and you might find that it targets a spot that feels achy painful just a little bit more so experiment with going through different motions turn all the way towards the left go all the way towards the right what you can also do is take your ear to your shoulder with a lateral bend all of these motions again are going to activate the muscles just a little bit differently and whatever you feel is most effective at getting rid of a lot of pain or tightness into the neck go with that and just throw some more repetitions in but this again is just an easy way to allow a band to do all of the hard work for us so this is one of my personal favorite banded traction methods because it really will pinpoint achy painful spots in the neck but it will also help increase range of motion that is unlocking a stiff neck i'm going to start off by placing a towel over my pull-up band for extra comfort i'm going to position the back of the band on the back of the neck over the spot that i feel is very tight locked or just painful let's take the two straps with our hands and just pull forward to create an initial tension from there i'm going to angle my hands up at about 45 degrees and pull upwards towards the ceiling this will create that decompression traction into the neck only go to your comfort level from here let's go through all of the ranges emotions of the neck what i'm going to do first is extension that is a backward movement i'm just taking my head down like this as far as i can when you do this you're going to feel the muscles around the spot of the band on the back of your neck get activated just a little bit differently again only go to your comfort level you want to hold this position for about 15 to 20 seconds from there relax take a breather and then on the next repetition try to increase the traction by pulling a little bit more and try to take your head down even further what we can do from there is then flexion so that is a chin tuck instead taking the chin down towards the chest and again repeating this one for three to five repetitions let's also do some lateral bending that is taking the ear towards the shoulder as far as you can on both sides you can also do rotation that is looking over one shoulder but you're going to notice that one certain movement let's say going towards my right right here just is a little bit more painful it's more achy what i want to do is make note of that and really try to throw more repetitions in there challenge yourself to stretch through this motion to try to get more movement on every repetition because that's going to help unlock the neck get a lot of tension out and hopefully a lot less pain but go through all of the motions throw in about three to five repetitions and throw more repetitions in with movements that feel like they're more painful locked up and i hope that gives you a lot of relief if you like the video and it gave a lot of relief please show us your support by giving this video a like and maybe subscribing to our channel too if you have any comments or questions please leave them below i'll get back to you as soon as i can thank you for watching

Channel: SpineCare Decompression and Chiropractic Center

Views: 116,609

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Keywords: how to decompress your neck, how to decompress your neck at home, neck decompression, neck decompression at home, neck stretching, neck pain relief exercises, stretching exercises for neck pain, spinal decompression for neck pain, how to stretch your neck, how to stretch your neck with a towel, how to pull on your neck, neck pull with towel, neck pull stretch, neck pull exercise, neck pull at home, neck pulling exercises, spinecare, neck pulling at home, neck pain relief

Id: zswiYQROKf0

Length: 13min 39sec (819 seconds)

Published: Mon May 17 2021