Exercises for Migraine Relief | Chiropractor for Migraines in Belmar, NJ
Hi everybody. Today I want to talk to you a little bit about what might be causing your migraine headaches. So most of my patients that get migraine headaches have very poor posture, or what we call tech neck, they sit at a computer all day long, they stare at their phones, they don’t necessarily have the best posture, rounded upper back, forward head posture.
Forward Head Posture and Migraines
The first thing that you can do if you’re a migraine sufferer is be much more aware of what your posture is looking like and what your posture is like when you’re sitting. When you’re driving. When you’re looking at your phone, even when you’re sleeping, you want to try to have good neck and head posture, I’m going to show you some stretches that I want you to be able to do for yourself, if you start to feel a migraine headache coming on. So I’m going to sit because I feel like it’s a little bit easier to sit, you want to have your shoulders back and your head straight, you don’t want to be slouching, you don’t want your head forward, shoulders back. Initially, what you should do is be able to put your body through its normal or your neck through its normal ranges of motion. So flexion and extension, as far as you can go, and you want to be breathing through it. The next range of motion is just right, and left rotation. So you want to be making sure that you’re able to turn your head as far as you can in one direction and the other rotation, you should try to get your chin at maybe 90 degrees each way. And then the last range of motion is what we call right and left lateral flexion. All of these ranges are going to actively stretch the different muscles in your neck and the muscles that attach up into the back of your head. Now assisted.
Stretches for Migraine Relief
If you want a little bit further of a stretch, my favorite ones are actually a system which you’re using your own your own hands and your own stretching. So you want to grab above your ear. And you’re gonna pull your head in the in the same direction of the hand that you’re using, you should feel a nice stretch in the hole right or lateral side of your neck going one way. And then the other. Do not forget to be breathing through your stretches. You never want to be holding your breath. So I always say anywhere from five to 10 deep breaths, then you’re going to turn your head about 45 degrees using that same hands grabbed the back of the head, and you’re going to pull your head down. If you’re doing this right, you should feel the stretch from the top of that shoulder blade all the way into the back of your head, really pull your head down. Keep that shoulder back and down and breathe. And then you’re gonna go in the opposite direction, gently 45 degrees, grab the back of the hand or the back of the head with your hand. Make sure that opposite shoulder is back and down and you’re gonna pull your head down towards your chest. Breathing into the stretches. Lastly, always want to finish it off with extension. So grabbing a wrist behind your back, roll your shoulders back and foot your head way back. This is gonna give you a big stretch in front of them. So we always do everything this way. Right? We’d look down when we type. We look down at our phones we look down when we eat when we read everything is down. So the opposite of that is extension. So this is the most important stretch we should be doing throughout our day.
So stretching is something all migraine sufferers should be doing throughout the course of the day to really try to loosen up the soft tissue component. Okay, I hope that helps. And I hope I get to see you real soon. Take care!
