Neck + Shoulders
A simple neck and shoulder practice for strengthening and maintaining flexibility, while preventing unexpected pulls and kinks that can occur with the demands of life.
Getting Started:
Steps
Familiarize yourself with each step of the technique.
Movement
Move from each step with awareness and a smoothness.
Breathing
Focus on keeping the inhalation and exhalation uniform and taking a full breath in each position
My Practice
1 cycle
Head Down, Head Up
Turn Head Right, Turn Head Left
Tilt Head Right, Tilt Head Left
Head Rotation (Clockwise and CounterClockwise)
Shoulder Circles (Forward and Backwards)
Neck + Shoulder Steps
Benefits
Have you noticed for yourself yet that your head is quite large? No, I’m not making fun of your head in particular. I’m referring to most human heads. Think of a round lollipop or a cake pop from Starbucks that’s being supported by a thin stick. Where is most of the weight, in the stick? or the edible top part?
Luckily, our necks aren’t as thin as a lollipop stick, but still, try to recall for yourself all the movements your head is constantly doing. Whether when you get up from sleep, to the constant rotations it’s made to do while talking to others, driving, or most recently checking your phone every 5 seconds. Not to mention the selfie positions you get into for the most optimal angles.
Now that you’ve got those visuals, think to yourself how often you take the time to consciously do movements for your neck or shoulders to keep the necessary flexibility for all those random sudden movements that you do each and everyday.
I can bet the average person allocates less than 24hrs in their entire lifetime to keep their top part of the body limber, yet they expect it to always be ready for what they put it through, and then also complain when it starts falling apart. The good news is that even if you take no care in any aspect of this human, you can still live okay sometimes, but are you here just to live okay, or thrive?
This simple neck and shoulder practice can help you start to bring awareness to the top part of the body and maintain the necessary flexibility, while at the same time building strength to keep up with all the demands of life.
These movements aren’t set in stone. Ultimately do what works for you, and tweak whatever movements to align with what your body needs.