No More Neck Pain: 4 Simple Solutions To That Pain In Your Neck, From Fast-Acting Pain Relief To Long-Term Healing Techniques

I slept terribly last night, I kept dreaming that something was biting me in the neck.

I woke up and it was sore so I went to look, but my mirror wasn’t working.

Vampire jokes aside, because I don’t know a solution or even a treatment for vampirism, it seems like it’s becoming more and more common for folks to injure their necks, wake up sore, or irritate chronic injuries, and there aren’t a lot of obvious solutions.

The neck is one of the weakest, yet most important parts of our fragile human bodies, so it’s super important that we do what we can to take care of it after an injury.

Photo by GMB Fitness on Unsplash

Or before an injury… you know what, we should probably do our best to take care of our necks, all the time.

At least, that’s the strategy that I decided to go with. It’s cost me a tiny bit in time, effort, and over-thinking.

However, I haven’t had a sore neck for more than a single night at a time in months, and if you knew me, you’d know that’s remarkable.

I’m not taking any fancy new pills, buying expensive products, or even seeing some back-cracking chiro. All the effort that I’m putting in is at home, on my own time, and either super affordable or without any cost at all.

It all starts with knowing what your neck needs, and providing it at the right place and time. It needs to be said, though, that not all of us are the same.

This is the strategy that works best for me, and it may not work best for you. If you’re suffering from frequent or chronic neck pain, then I definitely recommend a visit to the doctor to create a custom strategy that works for you.

In the meantime, you can try these simple at-home strategies that I’ve been using, because one of them is sure to help, for a while at least, if not permanently.

I’ve broken my no-more-neck-pain routine down into 4 simple steps that work for me, and I repeat them whenever it starts to hurt or feel tight.

1. Ice/Heat For Instant Relief

One of the best ways to treat a flare up or a new injury is with an ice/heat combo — not at the same time, of course.

You can alternate ice and heat in 15 or 20-minute intervals, or my personal strategy is to use an ice pack for 20 minutes, wait 10 minutes, then have a hot shower and let it soak my neck for a while.

This gives an ice treatment, a heat treatment, and a bit of a gentle massage all at once. It probably won’t help to fix the problem in the long-term, but it sure feels great at the time.

These strategies will not fix your neck, but they can seriously reduce the pain and soreness.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

2. Stretch It Out, Safely But Manually

When my neck hurts, the last thing I want to do is move it… but that’s what you need to do to fix the pain, quite often.

However, this is important — you need to do this safely and carefully, because you don’t want to hurt it even more.

Gentle movement, easy stretches, you don’t need to go headbanging at a metal concert… please, don’t actually do that. It would not go well.

If you’re concerned about hurting yourself during stretching, try skipping to strategy 3 — and maybe ask your doctor about stretches next time you see them.

3. The Slow Stretch Strategy

When I say slow stretch, I don’t mean that we move really slow and pretend like we’re turtles. I mean we use a little hack to provide a slow, consistent, and precise stretch to our necks.

It’s a strategy called “cervical traction” and it’s used by all kinds of experts to get just the right amount of consistent, maintained stretch, at just the right angle.

You may be able to find a chiropractor who can help with this, but there are also pillows and other tools designed to hold your head in the perfect position.

This position very gently separates your head and cervical vertebrae, reducing pressure on the whole area and potentially relieving pain from pinched nerves, herniated discs, or muscle spasms.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

4. Simple Background Solutions

While the previous strategies are things you can actively do to reduce the pain, there are also a few strategies that work in the background.

Personally, I recommend starting by taking some over-the-counter anti-inflammatories, nothing too strong, but an ibuprofen can help.

Next, examine your posture, because often the root cause of neck pain is just how we’re sitting or standing, and a little adjustment can go a long way.

Lastly, keep moving, but slowly and carefully. It can be really tempting to lock up and stay in one position when your neck hurts… and that can help, if it’s the right position.

You can’t hold it forever, though. I recommend that if you are staying still, use a proper neck pillow to keep your posture correct — and when you’re not using it, keep it moving.

Don’t just nod all day, but don’t hold your head tight and still either — because that will actually be harder on the muscles, and worse for your neck pain.

If the problem gets worse instead of better, please, stop what you’re doing and see a doctor immediately.

Your neck isn’t one of those areas where we expect it to hurt even more before it gets better, so if your strategy is causing more pain, it’s probably not the right solution for you.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution for every neck and every type of pain, but there are a few simple strategies that anyone can try at home.

With the right technique, life becomes a lot less of a pain in the neck.

See what I did there? The pain is already gone for me, and I’m back to making jokes again.