The excuse of all excuses… I can’t. I have a HA.

World spine day is on October the 16th, and the whole purpose is to highlight spinal health awareness. Too many people suffer from spinal pain. When we talk about back pain, we mostly think about the low back, but your neck is part of the spinal column too, and all too often, I hear our patients talk to us about neck pain and the associated headaches they get.

The single most common reason to get a headache is your upper back and neck posture is called a cervico-genic headache.

Think about this.

Firstly, Your neck should have a c curve, which allows the squishy thing called a disc show model) to distribute the pressure of the weight of the neck. If this curve changes, you will have more pressure on certain joints, which can get niggly.

Secondly, other than having a “C” curve, the head should sit directly over the spine so that the muscles do not fatigue. If your head is in front of the body - as we find in many people today, the muscles crash and burn, and when I say crash and burn, they get sore- again cause tension headaches.

If you suffer from HA, keep watching because I’ll give you a solution.

There is one important thing you can do to reduce the frequency and severity of YOUR headaches, and that is to train the front neck muscles to switch on properly and teach the upper back muscles to relax.

So let’s start with the front neck muscles called deep neck flexors- the first and most simple step is to draw your neck backwards, so your ears sit over the shoulders and hold for at least 30s at a time. If you do this daily, let’s say with every water break, you’ll find yourself in a habit that is much easier to keep

The second thing you can do is stretch your upper back muscles, and the main one is called the upper trap. Super easy to do when you are sitting at that desk for hours on end.

Sit down, hold the bottom of the chair, leaning your head to the opposite side.

Give these a go! Because at Balanced for Life, "Moving Better Matters"!