Yoga for Neck And Shoulder Pain

As astonishing as it may sound, the number of mobile phone users globally is more than half the world’s population or roughly 5.3 billion! Many of us require laptops or computers to do our jobs, even the students, in many parts of the world, now rely on their laptops for their classes, assignments, assessments, so on and so forth. Then there are other screens like our palm tops, iPads, TV screens to name a few. Technological connectivity was a savior in the times of the pandemic and helped many of us to continue our work/school routines. However, the screens have now invaded our lives so much that it is inevitable that we encounter one or more kinds of screens during a normal day.

Various researches have been done globally on the impact of screen time and mental, physical or emotional health of different age groups and the conclusions have been alarming to a great extent. One very common physical discomfort (to begin with) and a chronic condition, if not treated, is the neck pain that is a by-product of spending hours at a time on laptops and mobiles. And whenever an episode of pain begins, yoga can come to the rescue. Yoga provides quick relief from the pain and if done continually, it can even cure the pain, without any pain relief medication.

In this video, the spiritual leader, and founder of the Art of Living Foundation, Sri Sri Ravishankar, shares a very simple and quick Yoga technique to instantly alleviate the neck and shoulder pain.

A Simple 1 Min Exercise for Those Who Spend Too Much Time On Laptop | Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (youtube.com)

He guides on following these steps:

• stretch fingers and place them behind your head
• keep the thumb beneath your jaw (such that the thumbs are in the front and other eight fingers are in the back of the head)
• make eyeball movements in right and left directions without moving your head
• change the direction of eyeball movement to up and down and
• roll your eyes twice each in the clockwise and anti-clockwise directions
• bring your hands to the front and shake them to relax

Dr. Hansaji Yogendra, of The Yoga Institute, shares more such tips for neck and shoulder pain here.

When there is a time crunch which limits the options to do a full Yoga or physio therapy session, these are some easy ways to release stress from the neck and shoulders.  Follow these easy step to relieve the neck and shoulder pain.