Author: NJ

Whether you are starting a rehabilitation program or an exercise program, the importance of warming up prior to your workout and cooling down afterwards cannot be overlooked. However, many people skip these important steps and jump straight to their workout. Though taking time to warm up and cool down does prolong a workout session, these are vital steps to promoting the benefits of exercise as well as helping you not to injure yourself during your workout.

So why is it so important to warm up before your workout? Warming up your body readies your body for your workout: you increase your heart rate and respiration slowly, your muscle temperature increases, as does your blood flow. So before jumping straight to your workout, take 5 to 10 minutes to walk at a moderate pace, jog slowly, ride a stationary bike or go on the elliptical to get your body warmed up.

Cooling down is just as important. A cool down can be the same activity at the same pace as your warm up. This will allow your heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration to slowly return to normal. This is very important to help prevent dizziness or light-headedness once you’ve finished your workout.

A great way to warm up the neck is to do half circles.  Roll the head from shoulder to shoulder with the head flexed forward slightly and then with slight extension.  You can also use a hot pack to warm the muscles up even more.  On the same token, for a cool down you can again do gentle neck rolls, as well as ice, and even breathing exercises.

Now next time you hit the gym, or do your home neck or back exercises you’ll know the importance behind your warm up and cool down as you’re doing them. Giving your body this time to prepare for and overcome a hard workout is vital to the success of your workout regime.

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There are a variety of reasons why stretching your neck is good for your body. Whether it is before an exercise program, as part of a rehabilitation program, or simply a way to relax your body, stretching your neck muscles is highly beneficial. It helps to prevent injury or re-injury during and after workouts. However, if done incorrectly, stretching can do more harm than good. The following is a list of things to remember when doing your stretching routine:

1. Perform your stretches slowly, and fluidly. Don’t jerk your muscles.

2. Hold each stretch for 10-20 seconds.

3. Perform each stretch 3-5 times.

4. Stretch until you feel a pulling sensation in the neck muscle you’re targeting. Do not push yourself to the point you feel burning, tearing, or pain of any kind.

5. Stop immediately if you do feel any neck pain.

6. If you are unsure about a stretch, ask your doctor for a demonstration to make sure you are doing it correctly.

Stretching is a great way to keep your muscles safe and relaxed before and after a workout, while on the computer at home or at work, during a break from a long drive, even a stressful situation. It’s also a great way to warm up your body after first waking up. However, it’s important to always make sure you are taking your time and performing each neck stretch correctly so you won’t injure yourself.

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For many of us, it is easy to create our to-do lists of all the things we’d like to accomplish, but it is much more difficult to actually take those lists and stick to them until the goal is reached. With such busy day-to-day lives, it is easy to push aside our long-term goals in order to deal with our current situations.

However, there are a few easy steps to follow that can help you make your goals a higher priority in your daily life. By sticking with these steps, you’ll finally be able to start checking some of those items off your goals list:

1. First of all, you need to set a specific goal. The more specific, the better. If you keep it vague, for example “I want to get rid of my neck pain,” it is difficult to keep track of progress or even know when the goal has been met. However, stating “I want to work on improving my neck pain by improving my neck posture over the next six months” is much easier to plan for and achieve.

2. Secondly, you must be realistic with yourself when setting goals. Setting a goal to lose twenty pounds in two weeks is neither realistic nor safe. If you set a goal too high, or set too many for yourself at one time, it can be overwhelming and discouraging. By setting attainable goals, it will be easier to reach and you’ll get a great feeling of accomplishment when you do.

3. Next, you need to plan for your goal. Setting an attainable goal is a great first step, but the next thing you must do is break it down further so you know each smaller step needed in order to reach that higher goal. Start off with small enough steps that you can begin today. Another great idea is to make a timeline; without dates to keep you on track it is much less likely that your goal will be accomplished.

4. Now you’ll need to make sure you keep record of your progress. If your goal involves losing weight, write down everything you eat and drink for a week. If your goal is to improve your neck posture, write down every time your posture slumps and things that bring on forward head posture for a week. By writing things down, you become more aware of your habits. By becoming aware, it is easier to take control and change those habits. Recording your overall progress is also a great way to stay motivated as you see all the things you have accomplished so far.

5. Finally, you’ll want to take a look at your progress with a critical eye. If you’re trying to lose weight by running every day, but you hate to run, it’s likely your goal will not stick for the long-term. However, if you love to swim, then that would be a better fit for you to help you stick to your goal.

It’s great to have goals to strive towards, but it can quickly become overwhelming if you are not prepared. By setting a specific and attainable goal, planning, making timelines, and keeping records of your progress, suddenly that seemingly impossible goal is under your control and you’re on your way to achieving it!

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So often after asking a patient how they have been doing with their home stretches and exercises, they reply: “Oh yeah, I haven’t been doing them as much as I’m supposed to.”

One of the problems is this- he or she gets out of pain and tends to forget about doing them. The exercises, stretches, or our traction neck pillow may get you out of pain quickly, but that doesn’t mean you should stop using them. To really make change in the spine more permanent you need to continue with all of these things. If someone comes to see me that’s had neck pain or back pain for one year, the research shows it could take one year to get out of that pain and correct the problem. It depends on the severity and length of time the problem has been going on.

Once one relieves their neck pain they can cut back on their neck exercises, but still do them once in awhile. One of the reasons is that there are constant stressors on our neck- working at a computer all day, general stress, gravity …

One of the best ways to remember your neck stretches or exercises is to make it part of your daily routine, or habit! For example, do them every morning after you get out of the shower, do them in the shower, do them at work before your day gets going …

If you do them regularly they start to become habit. So even after you get out of pain, it’s a good idea to do some simple stretches and exercises to prevent future injury. It will only take a couple of minutes and is very important for your health. Don’t neglect your body, or it starts neglecting you!

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Here it is, Amazon’s Testimonial #48 for the Cervical Traction Neck Pillow:

“After having trouble finding the right pillow and going through a number of mornings with stiff neck, I came across this pillow. This is a back sleeper pillow. What I like most about the pillow is the raised neck and shallow middle for my head. Most of the other pillows I’ve tried were either too soft and didn’t have enough neck support, or were too firm and felt like I had my head tilted upwards. I even tried the memory foam, both normal and ergonomically shaped pillows. While the ergo memory foam pillow would have extra neck support which I wanted, I felt it was tall and stiff lifting my head up to high and exaggerating the curve of my neck. I would usually end up taking a softer pillow and scrunching it up behind my neck to add extra support without all the head elevation.

This pillow is almost 3 pillows (maybe 4) in one. The top main side (V shaped side) has the most neck support and bracing to help keep your head centered. If you rotate it 180 degrees, (so the V looks like an A) there is slightly less neck elevation/support if the V side is too extreme for you. If you prefer less neck elevation, flip the pillow over. The back side has a softer neck support area and but still has the shallow center for your head.

This is by far the most comfortable pillow I’ve used because of the neck support and shallow center for my head. If you’re a back sleeper and can’t find the right pillow to support your neck, try this out. “

The Cervical Traction Neck Pillow is currently available at Amazon.com and at Arc4life.com, under the category Neck Pillows > Traction for the Neck.

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No pain is normal to have. Pain is a warning sign telling you something is going on. Take your car, for example; if a red light on your dash starts flashing, you know something needs to be fixed. You wouldn’t just ignore it for the next few weeks or cover up your dash, you would remedy the problem.

Your neck pain is much the same, you don’t want to just cover it up with pain killers, and you don’t want to ignore it, or maybe you can’t ignore it because it hurts too much.

However, this is what a lot of people do. This is what leads to more problems or worse neck pain. If you leave pressure on a nerve, that nerve starts to atrophy or degenerate, and at a certain point that breakdown can become permanent.

One simple fix to relieve neck pain and take pressure off nerves is to use a good neck pillow. Our #1 recommended pillow is arc4life’s Traction Neck Pillow.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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Sara had been suffering with neck pain for over 4 weeks. She tried a number of different pillows and neck pillows to help relieve her neck pain. It wasn’t until she tried the cervical linear traction pillow that she awoke for the first time in weeks with no neck pain.

Some people, like Sara, may get results almost immediately, others it may take some time. In this individual’s case, she has tried neck pillows before and she has also seen a chiropractor. So, for Sara, it will be able to adjust to a new neck pillow or neck roll.

For a customer that has never used a neck pillow or neck roll, he or she may have some neck soreness when they first start using the traction pillow. It will also depend on the severity and amount of time of their condition.

So, in a lot of cases, people will take to this pillow right away, but it is also completely normal to have soreness in the beginning with this neck pillow too. In fact soreness or feeling good are both good signs that change is occurring. People with neck pain that are the same day after day is often a sign it will take longer to fix the pain.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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Insomnia is when someone regularly has trouble falling asleep and/or staying asleep. According to the Dept. Of Health – 64 million people suffer from insomnia and insomnia affects women 1 1/2 times more than men.

Heres some tips to getting a good nights sleep.
1. Don’t eat after 7:00 pm.
2. Don’t engage in a lot of mental exercises right before bed. What I’m getting at is: doing work, or things that bring on stress.
3. Try light reading before bed.
4. Sleep in as complete darkness as you can.
5. Don’t sleep with your cell phone or computer wireless router near your head.
6. Try to get your body into habit- go to bed at similar times each night, wake up at similar times too.
7. Make sure it’s not your pillow that is waking you up.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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Make a plan to end your pain and suffering. This should start with research into your condition. Listen to your doctors, but this doesn’t mean you have to accept their diagnoses or treatment. For example, their treatment may include strong medications that mask your problem and not necessarily something that addresses the cause of your neck pain.  For the short term, pain medication or muscle relaxers may help, but be careful on taking anything long term.
                                                   
Also, essential to your plan of attack is to have a support team in place. This may include family, friends, therapists, doctors, etc … Not only can you learn from the experiences and knowledge of your support group you need them for encouragement, support, and friendship.

Make your environment conducive to healing as well. What exactly does this mean? This refers to your surroundings- air, water, sunshine, what you’re eating, work environment. Make sure things are healthy, low-stress, non-toxic …

When it comes to getting rid of neck pain you really have to play a vital role in taking care of yourself. Remember that most healing comes from inside-out and not outside-in like a pill or drug. Medications may help, but they are often a very small piece to the puzzle of it all.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

Additional Reading

• Natural Pain Relief for the Neck that Does not Include Surgery
• The Neck Pain Relief Kit
• How to Check your Own Neck Posture
• Which Neck Pillow is Right For My Needs?
• How to End Neck Pain By Doing a Cervical Tractio Protocol at Home

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2000– Julie is a normal working mom with 3 kids, a loving husband, good job, and happy life.

2001– Chronic neck pain seemed to start in the beginning of the year, by the end of this year work becoming more difficult.

2002– Symptoms have gotten worse. Missed a lot of work due to sick days and doctors visits. Gave up coaching her daughter’s basketball team.

2005– After seeing her primary doctor, orthopedist, physical therapist, and chiropractor she still isn’t better and is starting to get depressed.

2006– Julie ends up leaving her job because it seems to aggravate her pain. She has also given up most of her leisure activities because she either can’t enjoy them anymore or just plain can’t do them without neck pain.

2007-2008– Financial strain due to not working and all the doctors visits, not to mention every other treatment or medication she could try.

Don’t let this be you!

Get after your neck pain right from the get-go. Start by getting a good neck pillow and finding good doctors or therapists that listen and that support you. The same holds true for family and friends, get a support team together that will help.

Check out http://www.arc4life.com/ for our pain relief products and remember, you can always call us to help you find what will work best for your situation.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

Additional Reading Resources:

• The Neck Pain Relief Kit
• Choosing the Right Neck Pillow for your Pain
• Stiff Neck Remedies
• Neck Pain resulting from a C5, C6, C7, or C8 Radiculopathy
• Exercise For Neck Pain Works, Study Shows

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Technically whiplash is any rapid back and forth or side to side motion of the body. We most specifically use the term to refer to the neck going forward and back. It’s most often used when someone is in a car accident that involves a collision and the head and neck jerks forward and back, causing muscle, tendon, and ligament strain, vertebral shifts, and sometimes worse.

But in actuality anything that can cause your neck to “whip” back and forth is whiplash. A fall on your back, a roller coaster, a collision of your body with another, like in contact sports, are just a few examples.

Whiplash is one very common way to lose your neck curvature. If you were told you’ve lost your neck curve due to a whiplash injury or trauma, it can be from something like the examples I have given. A lot of times it happens even when we were kids. The spine shift never corrects and causes neck pain, headaches, or upper back pain in the future.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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Looking At My Posture: Advanced.

A great way to analyze your posture is take a picture with a digital camera. It’s easy to look at your anterior-posterior posture in the mirror. Your lateral posture is more difficult to visualize. A picture with a camera works great. A standing x-ray is even better because it will show exactly what your spine looks like. If spine is shifted your posture will be shifted.

Another method is to look at picture already taken. Break out those family photos from last Christmas and look at your posture, you’ll learn a lot.

A tip to get your actual posture is to close your eyes, march in place a couple times, then relax and open your eyes while looking in the mirror or have someone take your picture. With your eyes open looking at your posture you will try to correct yourself without even knowing it. Another option is to just close your eyes and shake out your body. Basically, what I mean is to jiggle around, loosening up, and then stop where you think is straight.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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From the front your posture should be straight up and down- to see this in the mirror your shoulders and the tops of your hips should be even. You can look at points in your mid-body also to see if there are any shifts in your spine. For example, your shoulders may look even but when you try to line up the point midline to your eyes to your to the middle of your chin to your Adam’s apple things don’t line up.

Looking at your whole body, a straight line should be able to be drawn from the point between your eyes to your Adam’s apple, to your groin (the point of the “V” where your legs meet, to a point midline between your ankle bones).

Looking at your posture from the side, the ear should line up with the shoulder, and further down to the hip, and to the ankle bone.

The most common postural shifts we see are a forward head- the ear will be much more forward than the shoulder. Keep in mind a lot of us also have shoulders that roll forward, so picture them where they should be.

Other variables that may throw off your analysis besides forward shoulders, might be a crooked nose, ears that are different, or a jaw that is shifted. Keep this in mind when you are viewing your neck posture.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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One of the most common postural and spinal misalignments we see these days is forward head posture. This is when the head and neck are shifted forward from the center of gravity.

We’ve talked at length about forward head posture and how it straightens the normal cervical curve as well as how it can cause neck and shoulder pain, muscle pain, as well as other symptoms like headaches, numbness and tingling in the arms or hands, and more …

Today, however, our focus is going to be on other postures that are often linked with forward head and neck as well as the issues they create.

The first is rolled shoulders. This is when your shoulders roll inward. Similar to your head being forward, your shoulders being forward also pulls and tenses the muscles of the lower neck and upper back. This can often create pain in these areas as well as muscle spasm and trigger points.

What then starts to take place what happens to your mid-back spine (thoracic or dorsal spine)?

Your thoracic spine often gets hunched at the top because of the pull on your neck and shoulders and these muscles trying to balance the body.

As it works further into you lower body, it often causes low back extension. This happens because when our head goes forward, our body automatically tries to keep your eyes even with the horizon.

To do this, most often people with this posture tend to extend at their low back. This can now cause low back pain on top of your already sore neck.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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“My neck is always making noise, it doesn’t usually hurt much, but it feels good when it pops.” Usually what this means is that something is shifted out of place and the body is trying to correct it.

What you are hearing is simply a gas release in the joint similar to if you crack your knuckles. If this occurs occasionally and isn’t really linked with any neck pain or back pain then it’s fine. If, on the other hand, it seems to be occuring more often or you are experiencing neck pain, arm pain, headaches, or upper back pain, you may have a spinal segment out of place and along with a muscle strain.

What sometimes happens is: something gets shifted, this puts pressure on nerves. The body will then try to correct or compensate, usually by allowing the vertebrae above and below the one that is shifted and/or stuck, to move more easily. These are often the segments making all the noise.

So chances are, if things are still “cracking or popping” alot after a few days you may want to get your neck posture and alignment checked.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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It is completely normal to move around a bit when sleeping. Most people won’t stay in one position all night. What to do with the traction pillow is try to start out at night on your back. Once you get used to this you will sleep in this position for awhile and eventually move or roll over. The “V” part of the pillow will not only give a gentle neck stretch, but will help hold you in this position longer. When your body is ready to move, you will automatically turn and land more on the wing of the pillow on either side.

As long as you get some time on your back during the night, you will help improve your neck posture. So don’t feel like you need to sleep all night on your back, you don’t. In fact, a lot of customers are solely side sleepers. The pillow is good for that too because it keeps the head and neck level. We simply recommend to start out on your back to get some neck tractioning. Just sleeping on this for a short time will help correct neck posture and reduce neck pain.

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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You can often get symptoms from a neck problem that present themselves in the hands and arms. Carpal Tunnel is a perfect example; we often see people who think they have carpal tunnel or elbow problems when in fact the problem is in the neck.

When dealing with hand or arm problems you always want to examine the source of nerve supply to that area. The hands and arms are controlled by nerves of the lower neck and upper back. The same is true for the lower back, which controls function to the legs.

A poorly aligned neck can often result in shoulder, arm, or hand pain or numbness and tingling. In fact, depending on which nerve fibers you irritate, you can get burning pain, nagging pain, numbness, or even weakness. Also, sometimes you may have neck issues as well, sometimes you won’t.

Whether you have an arm that’s always falling asleep or a wrist that hurts, keeping the neck in its best position will only help!

Visit Arc4life.com for your online selection of cervical support neck pillows, orthopedic pain relief products and Home traction units. Products for pain relief.

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In my opinion, the best option for a disc problem or disc pain would be the cervical traction pillow. The key is the neck roll combined with the traction effect. These features help restore the normal neck curve and put a gentle stretch on the spine.

When the neck has the normal curvature it’s in its ideal position and the discs are held in place at their best. When the discs are out of position, putting the spine back in good position helps to retract the
disc(s) back into position.

With the V part of the pillow (this gives the traction effect) we can help give additional pull to the disc helping to retract it back. So putting the neck spine in position and tractioning the neck will give the most amount of retractive force to re-position the disc.

An additional component is diet. Certain nutrients can help keep the disc as healthy as possible. The main factor is water. Drinking alot of water helps to keep the discs hydrated which is most important in disc health.

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Radiculopathy refers to pressure on a nerve root causing decreased function of that nerve root and its associated communication pathway. Individuals with cervical radiculopathy may present with pain, numbness, or weakness in the arm or hand.

Whether the cause of the nerve pressure is due to a disc injury, spinal degeneration, muscle strain and inflammation, or a subluxation of a neck vertebrae, a neck pillow can help.

Putting the neck back into adequate alignment will allow for the body to function normally. Normal, healthy alignment is designed in such a way that the nerve roots exit off of the spinal cord out of the spine with no pressure. When a segment of the spine or a disc between the bones of the spine is altered or slides out of position, it allows for possible pressure to our nerves.

Our cervical support pillows will help correct misalignments. Putting the spine back in place allows the discs to be held in better position as well.

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Not only is the Cervical Traction Neck Pillow good at relieving neck pain, if you’re a snorer you may notice it helps that too. The traction pillow does take pressure off of nerves, that’s how it helps with pain relief, which can sometimes help snoring too. You must know, nerves go everywhere in the body, including your sinuses. So keeping the sinuses working at their best will help.

But more importantly …

In this case, the neck roll restores the neck curvature which takes pressure off of nerves in the neck, but also it actually opens up the sinus pathways. The reason we sometimes snore is that the nasal passageways become obstructed. It is more common on your back. If you sleep on your back on the traction pillow it will open up those pathways by putting the normal neck curve back in the neck.

So, if you are looking for a snoring cure, look to using a good neck pillow.

Additional Reading Resources:

• Why Adequate Neck Support While You Sleep Is Vital To Stop Neck Pain
• The Neck Pain Relief Kit
• Stop Snoring in 2 simple steps
• Help Me! My husband Snores and I Cannot Sleep!!!
• Counting Sheep to Fall Asleep, Does it Work?

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