Do you sometimes suffer from a stiff neck? A stiff neck can have many different causes. It can sometimes be so that people have a poor posture fora while, and that this causes them to get a stiff neck. It can also be so that people get a stiff neck because of stress. In this article, we sum up a few causes and we also describe possible treatment methods.
Stiff neck: physical causes
There are many different physical causes of a stiff neck. This means that our body will cause us to have issues with our neck. A poor posture can often cause a painful neck. Many people namely sit at their desk at the wrong way day in day out. Many people sit bent forward, meaning that the neck finds it difficult to carry the weight of our head. The weight of our head can be compared to that of a bowling ball. If you sit in the wrong way, it really is the weight of a bowling ball which looks for support in the wrong places in your neck. After a while, this might even cause long-term problems. Another cause could, for example, be migraine. Because your head experiences a constant pressure, this will be felt in your neck after a while as well. But this can also be seen in a broader way. For example, the flu. It can be so that your body is fighting so hard against the infection that your neck becomes stiff.
Stiff neck: psychological causes
Except for physical causes, it is also possible to get a stiff neck because of that which is going on in our mind. The main cause of a stiff neck is stress. It namely is so that stress is translated to our muscles. When you worry, this will have effects on your body, too, after some time. Imagine a vicious cycle. Stress is pre-programmed to also have a physical response, so that our muscles are prepared in order to be able to respond to danger. They thus tense up. This also happens in our neck. These physical symptoms in themselves can cause you to worry. This way, the circle is completed: you are stressed, your muscles tense up, you worry about the tension, and get more stress.
Stiff neck: treatment
If your stiff neck is caused by stress, you can treat this at the hand of our online self-help program. It can also be so that stress worsens certain physical diseases, which in turn can worsen your neck ache. It thus is always a good idea to treat present stress. The online program helps you in dealing with and reducing your stress at the hand of online interventions.
Stiff neck: take the stress test
You can take our free online stress test, to check out your stress level. The test consists of 21 short questions, and integrally sends you to your results page as soon as you are done with filling out the test.
