Hey guys, Dr. Brian here, we’re gonna take a quick look at three simple exercises that you can do at home, or office or really anywhere that will help get you some relief from those migraine headaches or other headaches that you’ve been suffering from. And they’re really simple, but don’t underestimate the impact that they can have stretching out the muscles of the neck can make a huge difference in some cases, when it comes to those headaches.
Neck Stretching Exercises for Migraine Relief
The first one is going to be a stretch for the upper trapezius, and what we’ll do is we’ll take our head, we’ll bring it over toward our right shoulder like that, making sure to not bring our right shoulder up as we do it. Also making sure to not bring up our left shoulder as we do it. So we’ll tilt our head over to that side. We’ll then use our right hand. Grab the side of the skull here and gently pull our head down to the right, you’ll feel a stretch here along your neck and your shoulder, hold it there for about 30 seconds, one to 30, relax, come back to the center, and then do it on the left. We’ll do the same thing to the left, making sure once again to not hike up the shoulder on that side or the shoulder on the other side. Stretch until you can feel the neck and the shoulder. feeling that stretch should be around 30 seconds or so one to 30. Repeat that two or three times on either side. You can do that a couple of times throughout the day to get some relief when you need it.
Neck Rotation and Scapular Retraction Exercises
The other one’s really simple as well. This is simple rotation of the neck, you’re going to just turn and look over your right shoulder goes as far as you can until you can’t go anymore. Hold it, hold it, hold it for 10 seconds or so. And then relax and come back to center. Same thing over to the left look over your left shoulder go as far as you can hold it for about 10 seconds, and then relax again. You can do three repetitions on either side again, a couple of times throughout the day. The third one is called scapular retraction, your scapular, your shoulder blades, and this is going to look like this. What you can do is imagine that you’re holding a tennis ball right there in between your shoulder blades, and then you’re squeezing your shoulder blades in order to hold that tennis ball so your shoulder blades will come back, your channel come up, your forehead will come back. You’ll squeeze squeeze squeeze. You can do that for 10 seconds or so. And then relax. Do that 10 times spread evenly over the course of an hour and that will help you get some great results should help that headache come down a little bit should relax the muscles of the shoulders and of the neck and the upper back should help you feel a little bit better until you can get in here for your next adjustment.