Many people nowadays walk around with tight neck and shoulders. This may result from the way they are sitting at work, over use of computers in uncomfortable and non optimum work stations, lifting heavy objects, generally sitting with bad posture or sitting crunched up at lunch when you are eating. Tight neck muscles and shoulders can lead to restriction of movement of your head. You can try and simple test to see if your neck is tense and restricted. Standing straight turn your head first to the left, and then to the right. A loose and healthy neck should be able to turn around a full 100 degrees in each direction. If you find that you head gets stuck, tight and cannot turn all the way then you have some restriction in the muscles of your neck. Tight neck and shoulder muscles can be the cause of painful headaches and even physical deformities of the shoulders or neck bones. Often headaches may be painful, long lasting and unaffected by pain relief tablets. And of course stress plays its role as well in causing tensions in the neck and shoulders.

CranioSacral therapy will relieve you from the symptoms of a restricted neck, will allow your neck and shoulders to feel freer and lighter, reduce and completely relieve headaches, improve the health of your neck, its muscles and the important nerves which enter and exit the spinal bones of the neck.

A CranioSacral Therapist, however will rely on the responses he feels in the body and the subtle but detectable strain patterns which untreated injury have left and use them as his guide to locating and treating the original and primary cause of pain and illness - which may not lie in the same place as the present condition.

Pain in the neck and back can also be caused by tension on the nerves as they exit the spinal column and vertebrae, extra pressure here can lead to over stimulus of the nerve which may affect that part of the back or an area lower down. For this reason a CranioSacral therapist may actually treat a segment of the back that does no hurt but still achieve pain relief. It is in this way that a skilled therapist differs from a regular doctor. In CST we understand that it is not always the place that hurts that causes the pain. Often the cause resides in a different place in the body. A CranioSacral therapist will be able to locate these points and treat them.

More on neck pain

Here's an Excerpt from this Neck and Shoulder Pain Special Health Report
Does your neck feel stiff when you awake in the morning? Do your neck and shoulder muscles seize painfully with no warning? There are many kinds of neck pain, and doctors estimate that 7 out of 10 people will be troubled by some type of neck pain at some point in their lives. One in 10 adults is hurting right now , and for 1 in 20 , the pain is longstanding and intense enough to severely limit the ability to work and play.

Why is neck pain so common? Your neck supports a heavy weight - your head - but must still allow you to tilt, turn, and nod it easily. This combination of strength and flexibility requires a complex system of muscles, bones, tendons, and nerves that, as a result, makes your neck vulnerable to injury.

Some neck pain starts with the bang of a rear-end collision, but more commonly, neck structures begin to ache after years of normal use, overuse, and misuse. Computer-heavy workplaces are notorious sites of neck maltreatment, as workers sit for hours with shoulders slumped and heads thrust forward toward their monitors, stressing the neck muscles. Neck pain is a leading reason workers call in sick. Middle-aged people suffer more neck pain than young people or retirees , and more women than men are affected.

While the specific cause of neck pain often remains a mystery - doctors often can't pinpoint the precise origin - it is rarely caused by a serious medical problem. It doesn't often require surgery, and it usually responds to self-help techniques.

Over the years, health professionals have altered how they diagnose and treat neck pain, placing increased control in the hands of patients. Even though high-tech diagnostic techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are available to visualize neck structures, the most important clues to the source of your pain are your description of your symptoms and the results of your physical examination. And today, you're more likely to take an active role in your treatment by using over-the-counter medications, heat, and exercises rather than narcotic prescriptions, traction, or surgery.

Formerly common treatments such as lengthy bed rest or time wearing a neck collar have been replaced by encouragement to return to activity as soon as possible. To that end, physical therapists identify your posture problems and teach you to stretch, strengthen, and use your neck muscles properly. This reduces pain, lets you safely resume the activities you enjoy, and lessens the chance of a painful recurrence. In some cases, surgery is needed to gain relief, but doctors now hesitate to recommend this course unless neck pain is persistent and clearly the result of a damaged disk or another structural problem that responds well to surgical repair. This report is not intended as a substitute for a face-to-face evaluation with a doctor, but instead provides information about how your neck works, what can make it hurt, common diagnostic methods, and a range of reliable treatment options. The following pages also describe the many simple steps you can take to prevent, ease, and manage a pain in the neck. Modern life is a pain in the neck. Just as there are many causes of neck pain, strategies for treating it are equally varied. This report describes the most effective exercises, therapies, ergonomic strategies, medications and surgeries to treat this debilitating condition.
Prepared in collaboration with the editors at Harvard Medical School and Robert H. Shmerling, M.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Associate Physician, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Senior Editor, Intelihealth. 37 pages. (updated: 2004)