The Top 8 Ways To Relieve Knots In The Neck & Shoulders

Are you looking for relief from knots in your neck and shoulder area? Are you suffering every day with tension, and uncomfortable spots in you neck and shoulder area, where you can press, and it sends pain up or down? Or it just aches and burns by the end of the day? If you are trying to avoid taking pain medications for it, and you don’t want to have injections for this, or you are concerned that this is going to turn into a worse problem later on, and you might need surgery for it. I have some help for you. I’m going to cover with you today the top eight ways to relieve neck and shoulder knots.

I’ve spent years helping people with knots in their neck and shoulder area. Almost always, over 9 out of 10 times, it’s a fixable problem that does not need surgery, or even the need to rely on injections or taking pain medications all day.

In fact, I highly discourage it if you can, so that you can save your organs, and be happy for the long term. It’s okay if you have a desk job. A lot of people that have desk jobs end up getting these knots in their neck and shoulder area. If they are writing at a desk, or using a computer, they think that it’s their job that’s causing the problem. To a degree, it might be a factor, but it’s okay to have a desk job, you can still fix this problem despite having a desk job, and you can continue working at your job for the long term as long as you do the right things.

Let me go into the top eight ways to relieve neck and shoulder knots.

Number one: go lie down.

If you are dealing with a knot right now, if you feel one in your neck, or somewhere in the shoulder area, on the back of the shoulder, the number one thing you can do is go lie down.

More often than not, the problem is related to gravity pushing down on your neck joints and your shoulders. If you can get from upright, whether you are sitting or standing, to lying down, a lot of times it begins to relieve the pressure, and you can find some relief. Many people don’t realize this, they might get a taste of it. If they sit in a chair recliner and lean back halfway. They will get some benefit out of that.

But if you go lie down flat, and you can put a pillow behind you just get comfortable, but you got to be lying down flat. That usually provides relief over time, that can free up the joints, the tissues, the muscles, the nerves, all that stuff that is getting aggravated. You can take pressure off of it and skip taking pain medication for that time.

Tip number two use armrests.

Think about this… If you are working on a desk, and you have a computer chair, or if you are driving a lot, there are usually armrests around, the console in a car, the door has an armrest, at home if you are watching TV you might be sitting in a couch or recliner that has armrest as well. Like I said earlier, gravity is pushing down and all your joints and your neck and shoulders and back contributes to the to the knots.

If you can use our wrist enough to where you shove them up so that it shoves your shoulder up. You might need to put pillows under your elbows, a rolled-up towel, or if you have adjustable armrests. Wherever you are sitting, adjust the armrest so that it’s at its highest setting so that it raises your shoulders up.

It takes some of the pressure off that gravity that is pushing down on your shoulders. So that can provide you some relief and extend your time sitting at work or driving before those knots really get burning and achy.

Tip number three, using ice and heat can be beneficial.

I have gotten mixed results with telling clients, and truthfully the research out there, on whether to use ice or heat is mixed. There isn’t a clear indication whether you should use heat or ice. What I tell people all the time is, try both and see which one works better for you. You might even need a third option of alternating heat and ice. Some people do really well with that.

Either way, I recommend people start out with heat, that tends to help the knots a bit better. Some people end up not liking heat and they’ll try out ice; that’s fine. You can get any sort of hot packs. They sell it at the store, you can get these at Walmart, Walgreens, CVS, or grocery stores.

A lot of them can be used for heat or ice, or there are some that are dedicated for heat and some that are dedicated for cold. Whichever one you want to use, put that around your neck or shoulder area, where you feel the knot hurting the worst. That can ease off the pain for a short period of time, which might allow you to avoid taking that pain medication and feeling a little bit better by the end of the day. So try that out.

Tip number four is massage.

Massage is fantastic at relieving tight muscles. You do have to be careful with this, because if your problem is more nerve driven, than it is muscle driven, massage may not be the best option for you. But a simple way that you can test this theory on yourself, is just get in there and rub around the areas. If you feel a hard lump that you think might be the source of your knot, the problem that you are dealing with, it could be a bone that’s sticking out your ribs too. By your shoulder blade and above your collarbone, your first and your second rib.

Sometimes those ribs can shift out of place and create a knot or a hard lump in the area. If that’s the case, you might need some specialist help like from a physical therapist to get that rib to settle down. It’s very fixable in most people. But if it’s more muscular, it’ll be softer.

it should be relieved if you rub it gently for five to 10 minutes. It doesn’t take long five to 10 minutes is plenty of time. Here in the clinic. Realistically, we will do massage techniques on knots for a minute or two. We are a little more specific with how we do it. But a minute or two is adequate to get the muscle to calm down, and that can provide quite a bit of relief.

If you are looking to get a full body massage or have somebody focus on your neck and shoulders for a longer period of time, like a 15- or 30-minute massage, that’s something that we can do for you here in the clinic. Or if you have your favorite massage therapist that you like to go see. Then I recommend you try that as well, so that you are not having to take pain medication today and suffer through this neck and shoulder problem. Try out massage that could be a good way to get some short-term relief, but it might last a little bit longer than say the hot pack or the ice pack.

Tip number five, take screen breaks.

If you are a desk worker, if you use the computer a lot, take screen breaks, and even with mobile phones and mobile devices, tablets, that kind of thing. Having a screen in front of you, whether you are holding it, or it’s on a desk, holding your head in the same position for more than 15 to 20 minutes at a time is usually detrimental to the neck and shoulder joints, especially over days, weeks and months of doing that.

I’m not saying it’s not possible for you to have a desk job for the rest of your career and have a healthy neck and shoulders you can. What I recommend is take breaks. All our desk clients are attorneys, or people in the medical field, they are always on the computer. Even right now we are in a special time, with certain illnesses going around. A lot of people are more at home and working from home, they spend a lot of time on the computer.

We are telling our clients, that are coming in for neck and shoulder problems, and knots associated with that, to put timers around you, put a timer on your phone, on your smartwatch and your computer. Your good old-fashioned kitchen timer works well on your microwave. Basically, have something that reminds you to get up and move, turn your head, move your shoulders, do some sort of exercise that you enjoy doing, or one that is beneficial for you and break up the extended sitting time in front of a screen.

Take breaks from the screen so that you can get some movement, that tremendously helps out neck and shoulder problems. Over the long term it will reduce the intensity of the knots, and over the long term truly begins to correct the problem. There is a little bit more to it than that. But that’s the way to kickstart it.

Tip number six is exercise.

I’m going to call this light exercise because tip Number seven is going to be related to it, but it’s a little bit different. Light exercise is one of the best places to start fixing knots in your neck and shoulder. It may be painful, especially if those knots in your neck and shoulders are active right now, they are hurting you, they are achy and burning. It may be painful to move around your shoulders or raise your arms up or go to the gym.

If it’s the end of the day and you like to work out at the end of the day, and you’ve been at your desk all day long and those knots have just gotten worse and worse. It may be a little uncomfortable. In that case, start out with light exercise.

Tip number seven, move into heavier exercise

Once you have done light exercise for a bit and your neck and shoulder problems have calmed down, then go into the heavier exercise. When I say heavy, I don’t mean heavy with the weights necessarily. It might, but it just means a little bit more intense, a little bit more aggressive than the lighter exercises of what you were doing.

As far as the specific exercises, there are so many options for you. It really depends on what’s going on.

That leads me into Tip Number eight, get help from a specialist

Somebody like a specialist, physical therapist that sees neck and shoulder knots all the time, speeds this whole process up tremendously. We are in the best position to help you find out what’s going to solve this problem for the long term, so that you are never having to deal with injections or pain medications, and most importantly, so that you are not having to face a surgeon someday for something that you could have fixed right now before it got really bad.

A specialist physical therapist can guide you on the exercises to do, we have to test out muscles and look at the joints. We look at the nerves, we look at all the factors involved, that are contributing to your knots in your neck and shoulder. That way, we can give you the precise exercises to begin to do on your own, and also make it easier, make it hard or move it along from easy to hard as you get better. Getting expert help really speeds up the whole thing.

If you are looking to hire somebody to help you with your neck and shoulder problem here at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, we’d love to do that. The easiest way to hire us is to find the button right around here that says, inquire about cost and availability, and leave us your details. We will get back to you as soon as possible, with more information about how to get in with us and how we can help you. I hope you have a wonderful day. Bye bye