Pain in the neck project

March 1, 2019 1:59 PM

I've been working 12 hour days at my home office desk for a couple of weeks, and this is likely to go on for another week, at least. My neck is sore. What can I do at home to make this better?

I'm paying attention to my posture, and my chair is usually properly supportive. I'm just in my chair a LOT longer and under a bunch of stress with a major project that has led to 3 all-nighters and lots of nights with less than 5 hours sleep. Help!

posted by maudlin to Health & Fitness (15 answers total)

I know you said your posture is good but just to double check that this isn't a problem: when I've had neck/upper back pain from working a lot it's because I've been on my laptop too much and need to switch to a monitor at eye level.
posted by quaking fajita at 2:10 PM on March 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

Neck traction devices are great for this. There are ones you lay on, and ones that hang from a door.
posted by ananci at 2:26 PM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

I've had recurring problems with neck & shoulder for similar reasons. Physio gave me a stretch band and some stretches to do 2-3 times a day. You can find some stretches on YouTube.
posted by biffa at 2:31 PM on March 1, 2019

Be sure you're getting up to stretch every hour or so, including gentle stretching of your neck, shoulders, arms, and back.

If you're looking down at your screen at all, raise it up so you can look directly at it without straining your neck. I've deployed a pile of books for this purpose when I haven't had anything more formal to use.
posted by merriment at 2:33 PM on March 1, 2019 [4 favorites]

i try to set up different places to work in the house. Just different tables to work at. I switch mostly after meal breaks. It is a modest variable, but just changing chairs every couple of hours really works for me.
posted by ouke at 3:56 PM on March 1, 2019

Definitely raise your monitor if it's not at eye height, but if your chair is contributing to the problem, it might be better to stand at least part of the day. I do this with my laptop with this cheap cardboard stand, which is no longer available but can be hacked together with books. The "standing chair forward bend" on this page might be helpful too.
posted by pinochiette at 4:46 PM on March 1, 2019 [1 favorite]

If it’s more on one side of your neck than the other; make sure your mouse is close to your body and you aren’t reaching too far with your arm. The muscles behind the shoulder blade refer up into the neck and when my neck hurts, it’s usually the fault of a too-far mouse.
posted by stellaluna at 4:59 PM on March 1, 2019 [2 favorites]

The "Mitch McConnell" stretch is great for necks. It's shown on this page as a chin tuck but your chin doesn't tuck, it goes straight back. I find it uncomfortable to do, but it does wonders in the long term. (Source: my physical therapist, who I see for neck stuff.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 5:48 PM on March 1, 2019 [4 favorites]

I've found my inversion table to be as beneficial to my neck as it is for my back. Gently turning my head side to side while hanging upside down really soothes my pains, though I might have different problems. Painting ceilings isn't much like desk work, but the skeleton must be appeased in any case
posted by Redhush at 7:57 PM on March 1, 2019

Definitely make sure your monitor is at the right height so you are not craning your neck awkwardly up or down. If you don't have an external monitor, at least put your laptop on a riser.

Can you get a Varidesk? I stand a lot at work - I used to think it was gimmicky before I tried it, now I couldn't go back.
posted by radioamy at 9:02 PM on March 1, 2019

Best answer: If you're using a laptop, its design presents you with a choice of neck and shoulder pain from a screen that's too low or neck and shoulder pain from a keyboard that's too high. Laptops are just diabolical for extended use. So if that's what you've got, your best bet is to jack it up on a stand until the top of the display panel is at your seated eye height and use a separate USB mouse and keyboard.

If you're already using a separate monitor and keyboard, make sure that the top of the display panel is at eye height and that the heights of your desk and seat put your forearms pretty much horizontal as you're typing. If you're doing more mousing than typing, a gel wrist rest will be good for you.

Also absolutely necessary is centering the screen so that you don't have to hold your head to the left or right at all to look at the middle of it. I've seen lots of home office desks set up with the screen off to one side just to make arranging other stuff on the desktop more convenient; this always causes pain with extended use. Humans do not have necks that are rated for this behaviour.

Set alarms on your phone and get religious about standing and stretching and walking about for a full minute when they go off. Every half hour is good, but even once per hour is going to be way better than nothing.
posted by flabdablet at 5:41 AM on March 2, 2019 [1 favorite]

Nthing the "laptop screen at eye height," and adding that I have owned a Roost stand for a few years and love it a lot .
posted by bagel at 8:37 AM on March 2, 2019

I recently started doing this easy little series of movements to address stiffness in my neck and shoulders. It's quite magical -- for a few minutes after completing it, I feel a lovely tingly warmth around the base of my neck. It's great for relieving discomfort in the moment, and it seems to be creating some longer term improvement too.
posted by Corvid at 1:12 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Quick check-in: thanks for the pointers. My monitor height, desk and chair are all good, but my head position may be an issue. Standing desk is not an option right now -- sorry! I'll try out the corrective exercises and see how they work.
posted by maudlin at 6:41 PM on March 3, 2019

Best answer: If by "head position" you mean off-centre twist, and you are currently experiencing pain, then that's almost certainly the cause of it, and you'd be far better off eliminating that cause than trying to fix the pain afterwards with exercises.

Sitting for extended periods with a slightly twisted neck doesn't sound like such a big deal until you've compared the results of doing it and not doing it. Night and day.

If you absolutely can't rearrange the items on your desk to centre your monitor properly, you might be surprised at how much improvement you can achieve simply by repositioning your keyboard and twisting your chair instead of your neck.
posted by flabdablet at 7:24 PM on March 3, 2019