How To Stop Neck Pain With Rolfing Structural Integration

(0:00) In today’s video, I’m going to talk about neck pain –
(0:03) how to differentiate the different types of neck pain that you might have
(0:07) and how to tell if structural integration
(0:10) is going be a good match for your type of neck pain. So
(0:16) if you are experiencing debilitating
(0:19) neck pain – neck pain that causes you to
(0:23) be constantly wincing, walk in a funny
(0:26) configuration all bent over, and just
(0:29) generally holding the area tight – that’s a pretty extreme type of pain.
(0:33) I would suggest that prior to trying structural integration.
(0:37) now you can, but prior to trying that you go
(0:41) to a medical doctor or a chiropractor and get at least an x-ray
(0:45) if not an MRI. Now that’s up to your doctor to recommend whether you get an
(0:50) x-ray or an MRI, but I would suggest that you ask them if you should
(0:54) first because there may be more going on there- you may have a
(0:57) more acute injury.
(1:01) It’s better to know what’s going on if it’s that intense,
(1:05) first. I can help deal with it, but
(1:08) it’s better to know first. Now, if it’s not that bad,
(1:12) if it’s just generally giving you headaches, or if you’ve
(1:15) got constant neck pain that’s impairing your performance –
(1:19) perhaps you can’t lift your head very well, perhaps
(1:22) your head is in front of your body, perhaps
(1:26) like I said earlier you’ve got headaches, perhaps there’s some
(1:30) TMJ pain,
(1:34) there may be a variety of things whether it’s on the
(1:37) upper neck just below the head, whether it’s in the head, or whether it’s
(1:40) down at the bottom of the neck and into the shoulder girdle – those are two
(1:44) different types of neck pain,
(1:45) but for the most part they will be resolved
(1:48) similarly. And what’s nice
(1:52) is actually when we’re talking about neck pain in general –
(1:57) almost inevitably the head is in front of the shoulders
(2:02) and the shoulders are somewhat rolled forward.
(2:05) To extend the shoulders – the chest is opened up and the shoulders are
(2:09) rolled back, the head now has a support
(2:13) to sit on, directly sit on without having
(2:17) to use all these muscles here to hold it onto the body for dear life.
(2:22) If your neck feels like a rock
(2:25) that’s part of what’s going on. Usually, it will happen
(2:29) in the front, too, because you’ll be pulling with your neck, you might even be trying to breathe
(2:32) with your neck. To the extent that your neck is hard like a rock,
(2:37) it will take longer to improve,
(2:41) but you will experience improvement. I have a pretty
(2:45) rough neck, but it’s changed a lot over the years. Now, the very first session of
(2:49) structural integration
(2:50) addresses this postural situation – opening up the chest,
(2:58) bringing the shoulders back, actually working on the neck itself,
(3:03) and getting the head much more over the shoulder girdle
(3:07) so that it supported and not having to use these
(3:10) muscles to hold it up. That relieves a lot of strain there, whether you had car accidents,
(3:16) whiplash, whatever you had. So I suggest
(3:19) that you come in and try a first session. Now,
(3:23) again in the context of the series
(3:26) of ten sessions, sometimes people are discouraged. They see that there are ten sensations and
(3:31) I can imagine that it must be difficult to
(3:34) want to think about committing to doing ten
(3:38) before you have even done one. So don’t. Don’t do that. Try one session.
(3:42) See if it’s going to be right for you. If it is, you’ll know
(3:45) and you’ll want to probably do the rest. If not,
(3:48) that’s fine, too, and I’ll help direct you to a better resource.