Your Neck: Bridge to Health

By Margarita Camarena, CMT

Bridge to Health

The neck holds intrinsic muscles that if tight, swollen or stressed, can really deteriorate the harmony of our proprioception, sense mechanisms and affect our clear thinking.

A pain in the neck doesn’t just hurt, it impacts a lot of our day-to-day functioning.

Home to the thyroid gland, major arteries, nerves, lymph channels and nodes, the esophagus, vocal cords and specialized vertebrae, the neck is a narrow but vital bridge between the head and the rest of the body that receives a lot of strain and stress. Being a narrow but busy thoroughfare in the body, the neck is especially susceptible to kinks and these kinks are more likely to impact other functioning. However unpleasant a tight arm muscle might be, it won’t affect your cognition, grace, and health the way a tight neck muscle will!


Given this, it’s amazing how often I receive clients who report that our session is the first that has included any detailed neck work in it! For me the neck is one of my favorite places to work, precisely because it can translate into so much benefit. A healthy, relaxed neck keeps the bridge clear for respiration, blood, and craniosacral fluids. This helps the thyroid, lymph nodes and brain work optimally. A nourished brain means a clear mind. The converse is that blood and oxygen deficiency can cause headaches and muscle pain.

Why is Therapeutic Massage Important for the Neck?
Having read this far, you probably don’t even need an answer to that question: you’re likely just craving a massage, aren’t you? The neck is really one of those areas of the body that can get the most benefit from bodywork as it gets some of the least respite of any body areas. Being so packed with functions, relaxing the neck stands to create a slew of positive benefits like getting rid of tension headaches, congestion, sinus pressure, vertigo, and increasing memory, clear mindedness, happiness and a sense of liberation.

It is extraordinary to discover how many nerves and arteries run through a space already taken up with vertebrae, thyroid glands, the esophagus, and layers of muscle.  On top of all that, the neck serves as a base and cradle for the brain. Further, the neck muscles are responsible for micromovements that stabilize our vision and ground our sense of proprioception (which helps us locate ourselves in space).

As you can imagine, there are a lot of aspects of the neck to work with, in a massage session. Below I am going to mention a few muscle areas, to show how they benefit overall well-being.

The Scalenes
Does that picture to the right look like anyone you know? Someone at work or in a café? Maybe yourself? Working in front of a computer quickly compromises the posture of most people. The slumped posture common to most people while they type and work creates tight pectorals and intercostal muscles. The forward head and neck posture also foreshortens the scalenes, creating strain to the neck, upper-back, and shoulders. Left uncorrected, this can contribute to serious medical conditions such as arthritis, osteoporosis and other chronic disorders. This is why Massage Therapy is your best friend! Therapeutic work in the scalene triangle can feel intense at the time; but it helps your nervous, cardiovascular, and respiratory systems. In some cases people see benefits with their thyroid as well, and higher levels of energy.

The scalenes run beneath the sternocleidomastoid (that big long muscle on the side of the neck) and help flex the head from side to side. They are famous for referring pain and symptoms to other parts of the body — including the hands: some cases of "Carpal Tunnel Syndrome" are actually the result of trigger points in the scalenes. On top of moving and stabilizing the head, they also help in breathing.

The Sub-Occipital Muscles

The Sub-Occipital Muscles are a conglomerate of muscles in the back of the neck. Run a hand over the base of your cranium to where it meets the neck, and you can easily find them. These muscles allow us to nod and perform micro-movements that help keep our vision aligned instead of going on wild rides as we bounce away with every step we take. This magical seat is also the connection to many major muscle groups that extend to the rest of our back. Working with sub-occipital muscles we also indirectly work with deeper structure located within the cranium. Releasing them invariably leads to relaxation for clients.

Another Reason to Receive a Neck Massage
I find that through the neck, I am able to release muscle and myofascia that has been constricted throughout the body, even all the way to the feet. So maintaining your neck nice and open can translate into benefit across the body.

* How can working on the neck affect something all the way at my feet? This is actually a great topic that I will write about in a coming article. For now, I will quickly say that it is due to myofascia, that magnificent structure keeping us upright, wrapped up and connected. In the bodywork world, we more properly call it the "Syntegrity Matrix."A fancy sounding phrase, it refers to the way that myofascia is functionally a three dimensional webbing system, wrapped around all our tissues and bones. Pulling on one part of the web affects other, sometimes unexpected, parts of the web. Enough of that for now, though!

Get frequent focused therapeutic massages.
If your time and finances are short, make it a 30-minute bi-weekly therapeutic massage. You will see great benefits from this ritual of self-care. Later on you can switch to a full body massage here and there as your body requests it. The nice thing about having frequent massage, is that you learn more about your own body and you begin to sense when it is starting to go out of balance. This will empower you to shift and modify habits. Massage Therapy, if you choose it to be, can be a place where you can learn more about your body’s well being.

Just as your neck can be a bridge to health, I hope to be as well. I look forward to our next massage session. As always, if you want more details, please comment below!

Margarita Camarena offers Swedish, Trigger Point Therapy, Deep Tissue, Craniosacral, Stretching, Mobilization Work and Reiki at Atelier Emmanuel. She uses multiple modalities to reach the goals desired by her clients.