Tonight as I was putting my 1 year-old son to bed after his
regular night time routine, I realized that we could all benefit from a night
time routine to reduce any stress from the day’s activities. Do you find that
after a busy day, your muscles in your neck feel tight, tired or stiff? Have
you ever thought about taking 10 minutes of your evening or night time to focus
on yourself and eliminate any stress that may have accumulated throughout the
day? No? How about starting one now?
Starting a night time routine that includes a simple neck
workout can help to relieve the day’s stresses. How do you relieve some neck
tension, stress or muscle tightness? One of the easiest ways to reduce stress is
to breathe deeply and slowly, this is also known as diaphragmatic breathing.
You get the most oxygen for your muscles and brain. This will be described at a
later time.
Other ways to reduce neck stress are to take a warm bath, read
and do some neck exercises. A quick but thorough neck workout that includes neck
range of motion, flexibility, strengthening and stretch exercises are great to
reduce built up neck tension. A simple neck workout can also help improve your
posture.
Doing a neck workout can also benefit you to a good night
sleep. Be sure your neck is properly supported by a pillow to avoid any neck
pain when you wake up. Also be sure to avoid clenching your teeth at night, not
only does this keep your face and jaw muscles tight but can grind your teeth
and cause temporomandibular joint (TMJ) problems. When you do strengthening
neck exercises, you can also tone your neck to avoid snoring at night.
On this blog there are many different neck exercises that
help with neck and head range of motions, stretch exercises to help with
flexibility and stress reduction and strengthening neck exercises. Other
exercises for neck include jaw and face as well as relief from headaches. With
these neck exercises to choose from, you can develop your own night time neck
workout just for you. Let me know what works for you.
Do you have a night time routine that includes a neck workout? If so, share here and let us know what works. What are some other stress relieving methods you do?
