These common yoga errors can literally be a pain in the neck

You are probably familiar with the painful feeling of stiff neck muscles. Whether you are about accumulated stress or hours to lean over your devices, you probably assume that your yoga practice is an obvious way to remedy that situation. And that’s it. But there is a chance that you make your muscles even greater by falling into a number of common mistakes related to your neck in your yoga practice.

If you automatically hang your head dramatically in the camel pose (utrasana) or awkwardly supported headstand (Salamba Sirsasana) falls problematic, you are not wrong. But there are other, more subtle and much more usual habits that influence your neck during your yoga practice. Here you can read how you can catch – and solve – these are easily overlooked.

3 errors that cause neck voltage (and how to correct them)

Most of these problems come from exaggerating some actions and conducting others. If you can bring your consciousness to the subtle, a primary doctrine of yoga and something that you are already putting on your mat, you can find your balance.

1. Lean your head forward

Your neck is easily the most mobile part of your spine. But it has a neutral position that it considers the home base – namely your head stacked over the center of your rib cage and pelvis with a light back bend in your neck. Returning to this if your standard position means that the considerable weight of your head is partially supported by the structure of your upper body, which creates less work for the muscles of the neck. It appears that your mother was to a certain extent, exactly when she nagged you to sit up or stand up.

But when you lean forward for hour after hour and look at your screens, it becomes easy to lose all the feeling of that ideal neutral neck position. And the resulting voltage is exacerbated when you take this curved perception of neutral in yoga phoses in which your neck muscles more than normal support-shelf pose, Warrior 3 (Virabhadrasana III) and downward dogs (Adho Mukha svanasana). If you consistently lean forward in those postures, it can cause tension and irritation.

A forward head also appears when you knew a block, a bolster or folded blanket behind your head when you lie on the mat. Supporting your neck so that your chin tilts to your chest means that you lack the chance to reset your muscles and remind your mind how neutral feels.

How to solve it: The more you experience a neutral neck position, the easier you can recreate it in your yoga practice and in life.

After you have found the basic shape of a pose, check your main position. Try to lie flat on the mat to remind yourself of how neutral feels. By feeling the contact between the back of your head and the mat, you can familiarize yourself with your neutral zone. You want to make sure that your forehead and chin are about the same and that there is a light curve between the back of your neck and the mat. Then replicate this posture while standing still in Mountain Pose (Tadasana), pose sitting in personnel (Dandasana), and practicing to practice with retirement of your head back in neutral in more complex poses such as Plank, Warrior 3 and Down Dog.

2. Forcing the neck tract

If you practice yoga, your first reaction to grumpy and complaining muscles to stretch them. Tight hamstrings? Practice some forward curves. Tense chest muscles? Take some backbends.

Many of us are approaching neck in the same way – what is to say with a little too much enthusiasm. And that’s a problem. Your neck muscles are smaller and finer than most. They respond faster to subtlety and fatigue than other muscles.

How to solve it: Less is more with neck stretches. For example, a few slow breaths, while you lean carefully to a shoulder, you can deliver more in -depth relaxation for the other side of your neck than pulling your hand on your head and try to force the piece.

Similarly, your chin can lean to your chest and breathe in your back ribs, can feel more healing for the muscles on the back of your neck than a forced position such as rabbit pose (Sasangasana).

And subtly your chin on lifting in camel or upward -facing dog (Urdhva Mukha Svanasana) can be much easier on your anatomy than dropping your head completely.

Giving your constantly working neck muscles An opportunity to relax in back postures can also perform wonders. For example, slide the rolled edge of a blanket under the natural curve along the back of your neck to offer subtle support. Then stop the sides of the blankets around your head and let your neck let go.

3. Fixing on stretching and ignoring reinforcement

The key to long -term harmony in your neck muscles is a suitable balance between reinforcement and rest. This can be a surprise, considering how often you hear instructions to “relax your neck” or “release your shoulders”, but the reinforcement part of the comparison is equally essential for stretching.

How to solve it: Just as your neck does not need intense pieces, it does not need intense work. You already strengthen the neck muscles by keeping the weight of your head in varied orientations to gravity. Think of being upright in the mountain attitude and pose staff, leaning to the side in triangle (Utthita Trikonasana), and extensive sidelines (Utthita Parsvakonasana), as well as face down in positions such as Plank and Locust (Salabhasana) and face situations such as Boat (Navasana). Simply reinforces a fairly neutral head and neck position, the muscles strengthen on all sides of your neck.

To add a little more challenge to these poses, try to put a soft pressure from your fingertips against the back, side or front of your head to create resistance while pushing your head in your hand. For example, place a few fingers along the side of your head in a triangle or extensive side corner, or place a hand behind or in front of your head in locust. Simply use a light touch as an external reinforcement of your alignment, not as a means to generate the voltage you want to illuminate. When it comes to the finely tuned muscles of your neck, less sure is more.