How Is Your Neck?

I was beginning to have back pain this summer after working very long hours sitting and with a lot of stress, and I thought my general weakness and lack of exercise was to blame.

I started an 8-week push-up challenge in which I found my max amount of push-ups without stopping (30) and then did 4 times that many (120) in a row, however long it took, gradually reducing the rest time between the sets. I did this 4 days per week. After that process I gained a lot of strength in 8 weeks and ability to do 40 push-ups without stopping. I've now switched to doing my maximum once or twice per day and increasing by 5 every couple weeks. I'm currently at 70, having a hard time going higher, but really feel incredible level of upper body strength from neck to back to abdomen, and am being more careful with my food choices as well. I think I'm now ready to do some more varied exercises, including cardiovascular and other things that challenged me earlier.

I find as I'm getting older it's really not worth sacrificing your body for engineering gains, I have too many tech friends who have chronic and sometimes debilitating pain and injuries as a result of the career. What's the point of great accomplishments in technology, career, and wealth if you can't enjoy them because of a broken body?

I encourage everyone to find an exercise routine that fits your lifestyle. Push-ups were great for me because I needed no equipment and could fit it easily into my work from home day, and target the areas of my body that were feeling weak.

OSHA recommends having the top of your monitor at or below eye level. I used to do the opposite - I figured having a higher monitor would force me to look up which would keep my neck straighter, but it seems that it's actually better to keep your head looking a bit downwards - perhaps it's a more natural and relaxing position for your neck? In any case, lowering my monitor did seem to reduce my neck pain.

I also got a split keyboard which I think helped me improve my posture by allowing me to sit back more comfortably with my arms apart. I got a Dygma Raise but there are plenty of options and they're probably all fine.

Exercise also seems to help, especially shoulder/back exercise.

https://www.osha.gov/etools/computer-workstations/components...

Suboccipital release, SCM release, roller ball massage, posture correcting straps, staying hydrated (my rule: if I'm not drinking a whole gallon of water a day I'm probably not drinking enough), chin tuck exercises...

It's a constant struggle. The worst impact is probably phone use. Ultimately, I think the best path is to continually work on strengthening and stretching the neck muscles themselves, which reduces unconscious degenerative damage. The abs, chest and back muscles all have a part in the system too. If your chest muscles don't have enough elasticity, they contribute to pulling your head down further, and so on.

If all of that is too much to parse at once: do daily chin tucks.

Surprised I haven't seen anyone mention Stronglifts 5x5. It's pretty popular here. It isn't perfect, but it was the key for me getting started lifting regularly. The gamification is really effective.

Invest a few hours reading and watching the videos up front, and push through the first few weeks, and you won't regret it.

If you have access to the gym: Dumbbell Pull-Over, Farmer's Walk, Rack Pull, Planks. But most importantly, don't give up. Lifting weights can help you more than you think. I've had issues that I thought would never go away, but they did. It took a lot of experimentation until I found out what works for me, and those exercises might not necessarily work for you, but some other will.

I had some neck problems last year which were worst after sleeping. This led me to believe that my sleeping position was to blame, so I focused on my position and pillow. I've never really liked "normal" pillows, but always had them. I kept trying to find the perfect one. I found a nice (quite expensive) memory foam pillow, but at some point even it was not comfortable. I would try to position more support under the neck and less under the head, with a lower overall profile. Eventually I even tried using a rolled up blanket as a pliable pillow that I could position however I wanted. This helped, but the pain still persisted.

One day, I decided to try something entirely different. I got a knee pillow - the kind made from foam for people to put between their knees at night. It was quite low and very small, but the concave cradle made for the knees seemed perfect for my head. Lo and behold - it worked! My neck pain did not disappear right away (at that point my neck would hurt through the day), but it did not keep getting worse anymore in the morning, allowing the pain to heal over time. The knee pillow is not very durable. The one I have has snapped in half recently, but I actually still like it since it makes the pillow even more customizable so that I can get into a comfortable position when I move during the night. I think I'll need to replace it soon, but they are so cheap that I don't mind the idea of getting a new one every few months.

Set a timer to stand up and walk around every 25-30 minutes.

I was the same, I thought it would be because I slept poorly and that krick in my neck would be there all day and cause headaches.

What did I do? Drink water! Holy shit did that fix it almost immediately.

Buy a half a gallon metal jug and sip that all day until you finish it. Instant fix.

Buy and use a standing desk. 1 hour of gym will not fix sitting 8 hours a days. I did that as an experiment in covid home office time and after a few months it fixed all my back and neck problems.

For many more details I can recommend

Starret(2016): Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World

https://www.amazon.com/Deskbound-Standing-Up-Sitting-World/d...

I have had similar issues in the past. The primary solution was to invest in an ergonomic work desk setup. The following elements are all important:

- height-adjustable desk

- monitor floating on an arm

- keyboard tray with adjustable tilt

- high-end office chair with many useful adjustments

- ergonomic input devices

With everything adjusted appropriately, I work in a perfect posture all of the time, without any strain, whether sitting or standing. I used to have pain and headaches all of the time, but now I only have them when I have tried to work away from my home setup. (I've since developed a good setup for working away from home, if anyone is interested.)

Other things I think are very important:

- Take breaks away from your desk as much as possible, for as long as possible. I like to go for a walk to think, and then come back to the desk with a plan of action. Remember that (if you're a typical HN software engineer) you are paid for what you accomplish, not for your chair time, so thinking time away from your desk is still working.

- Be physically active, including things that promote mobility. I find that the best approach is to make exercise something you do as part of life, not as a distinct activity.

I started having neck pain from sitting at my computer all day, to the point that I couldn't sleep from the pain. I now do this 10 minute neck yoga exercise everyday. The pain has pretty much gone away and I sleep great:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3-gKPNyrTA&list=PLciXFzGqhH...

Some days I just do it in the morning before work, or in the evening before bed. Other days I do it up to 3x per day: morning, after lunch, and evening. I also try other neck exercise/stretch videos on youtube to mix it up. I never expected 10 minutes of simple stretches to be so effective, but it has been like night and day for me.

Sometimes I forget to do it for a few days, and then I start to feel the pain again, so I just go back to doing the stretches. It's free and takes 10 minutes, so I recommend just giving it a try to see if it helps you. If I am feeling especially sore, I also use a heating pad and I find that it helps ease the pain.

My neck is ok. I loosely follow all of that boring ergonomics advice where your eyes should usually be in line with the top of your monitor, have an appropriate adjustable chair, don't just work on a laptop screen get a proper monitor with a stand and keyboard and mouse in the correct positions, you should be able to comfortably put your feet on the floor, etc.

I'm not in that position 100% of the time, sometimes I like to be able to lean back and stretch my legs out a bit, etc. and I do use my laptop screen as a second screen. The 'good ergonomic posture' position is just the default position I have my desk configured to.

edit: another thing that I might be missing here as well is that I try to walk a decent amount as a part of my daily routine and get at least some (albeit sporadic) more intense exercise in as well. But during walking I often make a conscious decision to fix my posture which I think goes some way to maintaining an ok posture at my desk as well.

- Don't stay in one posture for too long. A standing desk can help with this.

- Stretch multiple times per day. Your neck, your back, your legs, all of it.

- Exercise. Especially lift weights targeting muscles in the affected areas.

- Take anti-inflammatory drugs as needed. They can help put your discs back where they belong.

- Get an MRI. This can help determine the underlying structural issues.

- See a physical therapist / doctor.

I sit all day with a back strap (NadaChair brand, but there are many cheaper knockoffs that also work fine) which enforces pretty decent posture. Monitors are on VESA mounts with carefully selected height. Split ergo keyboard so shoulders are nice and wide. Seems like a lot of hassle but once you have it setup it just works.

Pull-ups. If you work from home you can get bars that attach to doorways.

If you've never done pull-ups before, you won't manage to actually pull yourself up. However you can "hang" which stretches out the shoulder and kneck muscles.

Once I managed to do a number of pull-ups, all my kneck and shoulders pain vanished.

"Foundation training" from Eric Goodman has helped a lot. Plus getting a standing desk — I tend to slump in my chair after a while no matter what. I get pretty bad tailbone pain still when sitting slumped, so it's been better to stand for me.

Since quitting all sources of caffeine from my diet my neck pain decreased significantly.

I go to a chiropractor. They do wonders! Perhaps I had to go there a few times in the start, but now I go there probably every second or third month, and it immediately releases whatever pain there is in my neck.

I have started gymnastics over a year ago and I feel that I have fewer problems with my neck. My lower upper body feels stronger and has better support for sitting through long stretches.

As a start try hand-stands (against a wall) and cartwheels. It’s fun and if you haven’t done them in a while you quickly get better at it. Most days after a session, I feel muscles in areas I never thought I had them. Being more flexible because of the stretching is another nice side effect. Best full-body workout I can think of.

I had serious neck problems for years then one change almost completely relieved them: going from multiple monitors to a single monitor. The horizontal neck swivel motion is very nasty.

Miraculously enough I have no skeletal, muscular, or neurological problems - even though I've probably spent 20 years of my life behind a computer, for far too many hours a day - often with horrible ergonomics.

But with that said, I don't think I want to bank on that lucky streak continuing forever...seen far too many people get debilitating stress/repetition injuries in their 50's, to the point that they pretty much have to retire.

I've had wrist and back issues intermittently during an 18-year career. What worked for me:

- Minimize working on a laptop keyboard.

- Rowing machine.

- Be well-rested, which may require limiting caffeine intake.

No neck issues, but lower back and core muscles are a problem, simply from too much sitting.

Physio sessions gave me some tips for how to relieve the pain when it flares up, and going to the gym for the last couple of months seems to have helped a lot.

Can't say I recommend a standing desk - I have an adjustable motorised one and while I do use it sometimes, it seems to just shift pain from my back to my legs rather than giving any actual relief.

After trying different things this is the only thing that has worked for me [0]. I can attest it has actually worked by how I felt and by other people pointing out my posture looked different.

It may not work for everyone, I had to try many different things before finding out something that made a difference.

[0] https://youtu.be/gfSCZbb9MOY

Never had anything in 35+ years behind a computer, but most of that were behind a laptop and I always hang on a couch or stand/walk working and do weights daily. Sitting, no matter how much they say it’s an ergonomic chair doesn’t and never did work for me; behind a computer or not. That is why we have couches and hardly any chairs (those are for the guests should they insist).

Don't do anything on your own, go to a physiotherapist. You can start doing exercises for the wrong group of muscles and other muscles will then start to compensate leading to more serious problems. "neck pain" is not specific enough for any recommendations. The best non-specific advice is to change your sitting position frequently and take breaks.

I had issues with this to the point where my neck would crack all the time just moving around.

The fix: Force myself to sit and stand straight. Check with a physical therapist to show you how far back you need to keep your head, and keep it there 24/7 until it's a habit.

Also, planks for a minute in the morning help keep core strong.

I use a monitor stand to bring the monitor to eye level and an adjustable desk to fix posture. Avoiding laptop-on-lap and phone screen viewing combined with stretching assigned by a physical therapist has helped a lot. There are some days when I can get a tension headache with only a few minutes in phone screen posture.

I occasionally have neck issues. I assume it is bad posture. I do some simple exercises for a few days and it goes away for a few months.

Tilt forward and back, 10 times, left to right. Then head rolls.

I am getting higher monitor stands so that I am not pointing my head down whenever I am viewing a screen.

Got a physiotherapist, work an you muscles and posture, setup your work environment ergonomically

Drink lots of water. I only get Beck pain when I'm dehydrated

do a bit of neck mobility drill on a daily basis https://youtu.be/K4dmZ5_n6uU

breaks every 10-20 minutes to get up and move

Does anyone feel their chair at all helps?

I used to have horrible neck and shoulder pain, mine was also due to bad posture. The issue was that I was using a knee-chair, thinking that it would be better than a regular chair. It was at first. However, eventually I go into the habit of kicking a foot up on one of the knee-wrungs, my posture didn’t improve and I’d unconsciously compensate some other way. Naturally, the neck and shoulder pain got worse.

Now I use a couple of standing desks ([0] and [1]) and a couple of those “standing/perch chairs” for lack of a better description ([2] and [3]). Simply standing without the perch chairs worked too, but I found I was more productive and less likely to walk away from the desk if I could occasionally lean back.

I also stopped using a mouse and went with a trackpad, alone with a split keyboard (ergodox classic). In my case the mouse and keyboard change had a much more noticeable, positive, effect than I would have thought.

I agree with others here in their recommendation to talk to an ergonomic expert if you can. I didn’t and consequently it took longer to figure out what worked. Since you’re working at your desk for potentially hours at a time, don’t be afraid to invest in a decent set up. It’s worth it.

As an aside, I picked up a leanchair [4] since it seemed like a good idea. I liked it at first, and you might consider it. However, I got in the habit (again) of kicking a foot against the leg/foot rest piece which seemed to shift my hips a little and absolutely beat up my lower back. I got rid of it as soon as I made the connection.

(Forgive the order, my iPad’s not cooperating)

[2] https://ergoimpact.com/ (kinda pricey)

[3] https://www.amazon.com/VIVO-Ergonomic-Adjustable-Anti-Fatigu... (less pricey, quality less than above, but otherwise as good)

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Ergotron-Computer-Adjustable-Height-2... (daily driver)

[1] https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/skarsta-trotten-desk-sit-stand-... (hand crank version - I only ever keep it at standing height, so the crank never gets used)

[4] https://leanchair.com/ (heard good things, but didn’t work for me)

Terrible