Working out the tension

When the neck is thrown backwards and forwards, this is known as whiplash, and it is most commonly associated with car accidents, but it can also occur from sudden falls, and sharp movements on fairground rides. The neck is a very complicated area of the human body with vertebrae from the spine that are surrounded by muscles, joints, tissue, and nerves. When a concentrated force is placed upon this area, all of these elements are put under stress and pain can occur.

Whiplash is something that normally takes care of itself over time, and you might also want to see your doctor who can prescribe painkillers to work through the pain, but there are also some things that you can do yourself to emerge from the other side of whiplash as quickly as possible:

Keep moving

The mistake that many people suffering from whiplash make is thinking that moving the neck as little as possible will help the healing. Some people may even wear a neck brace to stop mobility in the neck to ease the pain, but this is a bad idea. Actually, in order to improve, your neck needs to have its normal mobility.

This is how the muscles and joints will return to their functioning pain-free state. This doesn't mean that you should move your neck more than normal, but just as much as you normally would.

See a physiotherapist

With any pain related to joints and muscles, seeing a physio is always a good idea. They have expert training in pain relief methods that can assist patients in both the short term and long term. A treatment that many physiotherapists use to treat whiplash is soft tissue massage.

This is a form of deep tissue massage that involves pressing on the affected muscle while stretching it, which is very successful at restricting those stuck places in the muscles that are commonly associated with whiplash.

Postural exercises

Maintaining a strong posture throughout your recovery is vital. Of course, one of the ways to do this is to be mindfully erect as you go through the day, but you can also encourage good posture with exercises like yoga, which is a form of exercise completely centred around controlled postures.

Physiotherapists can also help with your posture by teaching you safe postural exercises that you can practice in the physio clinic and then replicate yourself at home. Exercises such as shoulder blade squeezes and overhead reaches could make your whiplash heal faster. To learn more, contact a company like Raw Therapies.