Neck Pain Support Blog

Dance your Way to Better Health...

In recent years I have been tuning in to “Dancing with the Stars”- it’s amazing to watch the transformation of these celebrities becoming accomplished dancers. This year, 2011, I am fascinated watching Kirsty Alley as I know that this form of exercise is going to help her really get into shape.

I always encourage my patients to exercise regularly. Well, dancing is one way to accomplish this. Dance can be a total body workout where in one hour you can burn 4000 calories. The benefits of dance are not just about shedding pounds. You can tone your muscles, improve your balance and boost your brain power. With so many choices for dance, there is bound to be one that you will enjoy. Each dance targets different muscle groups and helps you tone differently:

1. Latin Dance: Targets the front and side abdominals (transverse and oblique muscles) and back muscles.
   • Involves twisting, pulling, constant back and forth movement.
   • Improves your core muscles therefore improving your posture and aids in preventing lower back pain.
2. Jazz Dance:
   • Involves movement of sharp kicks and sultry slides.
   • Targets the front of the thighs.
   • Improves agility and gait for better balance.
   • Also tones your midsection.
3. Tap Dance: This type of dance targets your calf and shin muscles.
   • With all the small hops and jumps you will strengthen your bones.
   • Tap also increases your range of motion and strengthens fast, twitch muscles, thus protecting you from ankle injuries.
4. Ballet: Targets your hips and your feet.
   • Ballet increases flexibility from head to toe
   • This type of dance also helps you improve your posture and thus helps your strengthen your entire body.
   
5. Masala Bhangra: If you haven’t seen this type of dancing, watch Slumdog Millionaire- it’s India ’s Electric Slide.
   This dance is healthy because it targets the front and back of your upper arms, shoulders, and upper back.
   • It strengthens the rotator cuff muscles
   **Bhangra: My Favorite

Source: Prevention Magazine, April 2011.

Sit up Straight ! Why Your Moms Advice Rings True

Sitting here at my computer writing the Neck Pain Support Blog it makes me aware of my computer, my breathing, my sitting posture, and how I feel while working on the computer.Actually, I am pretty comfortable- no neck pain, no upper back pain, and no eye strain.I think my Mom would be proud: She always says, sit up straight, walk standing tall !

Some of us can be oblivious to our surrounding, not paying attention to what our bodies are going through. More specifically, our neck posture, and our back posture.

If you are craning your neck to see your screen, leaning back or rocking back and forth in your chair- or maybe even crunched up in your seat, you may need to do a double take on your posture while at the computer. Why is good posture important you ask? Lots of different reasons:

• Good posture helps you breathe better and more easily
• Good posture will make you look better and feel more self confident
• Good posture will help you concentrate and think better

If you have fallen into some of these bad habits, you are not alone. Here are some simple changes you can make:

Sit up straight and stand up straight. Once you start doing that you will be engaging different muscles to be sitting up straighter; soon your body will get used to it, and it will become a normal act to sit up straight. Its also okay to remind yourself to sit up or stand up straighter. Some people even put a yellow sticky note on their computer screen or a mirror as a simple reminder. Also, if you find your self straining to see the computer screen, check your surrounding light. You may have to get a brighter desk lamp so that you eliminate the extra strain you are putting on your body and your eyes. Finally, making sure you have a good quality back support is important- especially if you are sitting for the majority of the day. It will help you sit up straighter in your chair and can help decrease the back pain at the end of a long work day !

So next time your Mom shouts at you to walk without hunching or to sit up straight, keep in mind that she is right, and only looking out for you !

Additional Reading Resources

• Improve your Posture With the Posture Corrector
• Why Posture Is the Window to Your Health
• Neck Posture: Components of a Comfortable Work Station
• Back Packs and Neck Pain

Simple Illusions of the Mind may play a role in arthritis pain relief.

According to psychologists at Nottingham University in London England a simple computer generated optical illusion could play a role for those suffering from arthritis pain. The technology, called Mirage, helped arthritis patients improve the mobility of their hands by halving the pain they felt in fingers.

A small number of sufferers were asked to place their hands inside a box containing a camera, which then projected the image on to a screen in front of them. The technology allowed them to see their arthritic fingers being apparently stretched and shrunk. In fact, someone was gently pushing and pulling their fingers from the other side of the box and the camera created the illusion of huge stretching and shrinking.

The study found that in 85 percent of cases it decreases the pain by 50%.

Where has Mirage been used before? Mirage was first used as part of a educational project on the way our brains put together what we see and feel happening to our bodies.

Dr Roger Newport, who is leading the research in the School of Psychology, said: “The majority of people who come to these fun events are kids – the illusions really capture their imagination and they think it’s a cool trick.” Ironically, the fact that it can help patients with arthritic pain, came about by complete chance.

One of their grandparents kids’ discovered a healing effect surprisingly.

Dr Catherine Preston, who is collaborating on the study and is now at Nottingham Trent University, said: “The grandmother wanted to have a go, but warned us to be gentle because of arthritis in her fingers.

“We were giving a practical demonstration of illusory finger stretching when she announced ‘My finger doesn’t hurt any more’ and asked whether she could take the machine home with her.

“We were just stunned – I don’t know who was more surprised, her or us.”

The psychologists decided to study this phenomenon. They recruited 20 volunteers aged around 70 with osteoarthritis to test out the Mirage technology. All had been diagnosed with arthritic pain in their hands and fingers, and were asked to rate their pain during the illusion.

Many of those tested said they felt less pain in their hands and fingers when the image appeared to show them being stretched, while others got relief when the image showed them shrinking. Some said they were in less pain when stretched and shrunk.

In a third of those taking part, the treatment stopped the pain entirely. It was found the illusion only worked when the painful part of the hands was being manipulated.

Some volunteers said their feet also felt more pain-free during the illusion.

The research team is to publish the findings in a letter to the medical journal Rheumatology.

Source: Optical illusion eases arthritis pain

Additional Reading Resources:

• Walk your Pains Away
• Kink in the Neck
• Top 10 Reasons For Neck Pain And How To Correct Them
• Phil Mickelson Talks About his Arthritis Pain
• Hot and Cold Therapy

Meditation More Effective than Pain Medication in Pain Relief

Before you pop that next Tylenol for your neck pain, or maybe even morphine if you are really desperate, consider a new study that shows that brain activity is altered in people who meditate while exposed to pain. New evidence to be published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that relaxation techniques such as meditation are effective in coping with and managing various health problems, including pain.

In this study, scientists scanned the brains of 15 health volunteers naive to meditation using arterial spin labeling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL MRI). During the scan, a heat device was placed on the right legs of subjects that warmed the area to 120 degrees Fahrenheit over 5 minutes. Most people experience this stimulus as painful.

The scans were conducted prior to meditation and after four 20 minute classes in a technique known as focused attention. In focused attention people pay attention to their breath while letting go of distracting thoughts or emotions.

Amazingly, after meditation training, pain intensity was reported to be 40% less on average, while pain unpleasantness was rated 57% lower. Every participant rated their pain lower after meditation from an 11% reduction up to a 93% reduction. Ironically, most opiate painkillers reduce pain by 25%.

What did the MRI Scans Show? The scientists reported that brain activity was reduced in the primary somatosensory cortex while increased in the anterior cingulate cortex, anterior insula, and orbiot-frontal cortex after meditation. These areas of the brain are involved in feeling the location and intensity of pain as well as creating the experience of the pain. It appears that meditation works on multiple areas of the brain responsible for multiple pathways that process the experience of pain.

Although the results of this study are limited by the small number of participants, the implications of this information is intriguing. Meditation produced dramatic pain-reducing effects after only 1 hour 20 minutes of instruction. The potential to reduce pain was greater than traditional pain medications.. This is definitely worth looking into.

Source: Brain Mechanisms Supporting the Modulation of Pain by Mindfulness Meditation

Additional Reading Resources

• Biofreeze Natural Pain Relief Gel
• Kink in the Neck?
• Treatment of a Stiff Neck Without Pain Medication
• Study Shows that Even a Small Amount of Meditation can Improve Cognitive Skills
• Meditation can Aid in Pain Relief, Study Show
• Info on Meditation Training, Relaxation, Peak Performance And Metaphysical Phenomena.