forward head carriage

Helping Hands for Healthy Posture: Tall Neck

Helping Hands for Healthy Posture: Tall Neck

Esther Gokhale
Date

Most of us are familiar with the idea of self-massage. For many it may grow from instinctively rubbing a sore spot. For a few it grows into an essential healing art, and may even incorporate skills such as trigger point work, myofascial release, and acupressure. 

Healing hands 

Many students opt for the in-person Gokhale Method® offerings (Free Workshops, Initial Consultations, Foundations, Pop-up, and Alumni Classes) because they place great value on their teacher’s hands-on work. I have found that hands-on work continues to be a force for good even in online work. For our online Elements students, who don’t get guidance from a teacher’s hands, it’s especially important to learn to do hands-on work with their own hands.

One of the most useful hands-on techniques that we teach you to do for yourself, whether you are an in-person or online student, is the hair pull. It is the subject of one of our free Gokhale® Moments videos, and one that we frequently refer to. In fact, Hair Pull is our most liked Gokhale Moment! See if you like it too…

The hair pull involves gently gliding your head back and up, lengthening the neck, aligning it more vertically, and pivoting the head slightly downward.

Confine your movement to the neck and head

When performing the hair pull, make sure that you are not pulling your torso and swaying your back. You may detect a straightening of the upper thoracic spine and feel stretch in the upper chest when gliding your neck back, which is fine. Other than that, focus on isolating the movement to your head and neck. If you find yourself swaying back with your front ribs lifting, you want to prevent this and protect against compressing your lower back by first learning to use your Rib Anchor—another Gokhale Moment video that we frequently refer to. 

Healthy head carriage

Rather than having forward head carriage, we want to return to healthy head carriage. Carrying not only your head on your spine, but an additional load on the head, is an almost universal practice in traditional societies, and both necessitates and encourages healthy neck alignment. 

Woman headloading in Odisha market, India

A well-positioned neck and head align directly over the torso—not to the front or behind

The Gokhale® Head Cushion has just enough weight to help you find the verticality you are looking for in your neck. By strengthening your deeper neck muscles, it also helps to relax the more peripheral neck musculature that is often tight. (You can use our $5 discount code TallNeck, valid through Sunday October 13, to purchase a head cushion.)

An image of the Gokhale Head Cushion

Letting go

Undoing well-established patterns such as tensing the back of the neck can still be difficult to navigate by yourself. Often the body has “held tight” to a position for decades. This is rather like pulling on a knotted piece of string—the harder we pull, the tighter the knot gets. Take things slowly to allow your nervous system time to find a different response, and your tissues time to relax. If the back of your neck only knows how to draw tighter, you can call on the expertise of a Gokhale Method teacher who has guided other students through this same difficulty and out the other side. Once you have unlocked these patterns together, you can continue to gently coax the elastic release you have discovered using your own hands. 

Esther Gokhale using hair pull technique with a young male student.
Here I am guiding a student to experience more mobility, length, and verticality in his neck.

Pain will not bring gain

If you have any pain when you try this maneuver, stop. Don’t feel obliged to follow general instructions that are not tailored for you. Nature spent millions of years evolving a sophisticated way of telling you not to do something, and you don’t want to disregard that signal. This is an instance where a qualified Gokhale Method teacher can look at your health history, together with the advice of your preferred health professional if appropriate, and work with you to progress comfortably and safely. 

Painting by Manet of woman in black dress and hat with tall neck.

Previous generations rarely exhibited the forward head carriage and curved necks that commonly cause tension, pain, and degenerative conditions today.

Help that’s at hand

Once you have mastered this hands-on maneuver, you can remind your neck and head how to move back home into a healthier alignment as frequently as needed. Practice regularly and mindfully, and you will progress with both your range of motion and your baseline posture. 

Teacher Julie Johnson helps a student lengthen her neck with a head cushion and hands-on.
Gokhale Method teacher Julie Johnson offers a student hands-on help in combination with a Gokhale® Head Cushion to gently lengthen her neck. The weight of the cushion encourages the deep spinal muscles of the neck to work, so that the outer muscles can relax.

Share your progress!

If you have practiced our “hair pull” technique and would like feedback on your neck and head position, please consider uploading a “Before” and an “After” picture in the comment section below. It’s a great way for all of us to share and learn from each other. 

Esther Gokhale demonstrating neck lengthening to teenage class. 
Here I was in 2009, demonstrating the lengthening effect of pulling up the back of the head to a group of teenagers. Hopefully they have continued to enjoy the benefits of space for their cervical discs, nerves, and bones!

Best next action steps 

If you would like help to improve your neck and head posture, get started by booking a consultation, online or in person, with one of our teachers. 

You can sign up below to join any one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops…

How Barbie and Other Dolls Can Give Us Postural and Personal Inspiration

How Barbie and Other Dolls Can Give Us Postural and Personal Inspiration

Esther Gokhale
Date

This summer, with blockbuster success, Barbie is front and center! And yes, I did see the movie. I usually use dolls to talk about our physical characteristics, but their intended function is to teach emotional and social skills such as friendship, parenting, and play. Barbie the movie certainly emphasizes this aspect of the iconic doll in no subtle way! 

This blog post looks to dolls for some postural lessons, and also some emotional ones. Research such as a 2017 New Zealand study shows that posture connects with both our physical and emotional stance, and in our company we have come to embrace the deep relationship between posture and emotional health. So, over to Barbie, Wonder Woman, and friends. . .

Barbie posed with her first clothing designer, Charlotte Johnson, in 1965.
Barbie, right now, is the most famous doll in the world. What can she, and other dolls, teach us about posture? Barbie is posed here with her first clothing designer, Charlotte Johnson, in 1965. Image: Wikimedia

Barbie

Launched at the NYC American International Toy Fair in 1959, Barbie was a single female archetype, white, fashionable, and slender. Over the decades, Barbie has reflected changing times; not just in fashion, but, more importantly, in how women’s lives have changed, and in representing the diversity of our population. For all its flaws, I think the film celebrated this while acknowledging how far there is to go. . .

Black Barbie doll with outfits, in box, from 1980.
This second Black Barbie was introduced in 1980, but still had Caucasian features. Hispanic Barbies were also introduced that year. Authentically styled African-American dolls joined the range from 2009. Image: Wikimedia

It strikes me that Barbie has, over the years, maintained an upright, open stance with a healthy posterior shoulder position and a tall neck. Her posture is closer to that of the children who play with her than their parents’, as in our culture, by adulthood, we are likely to have adopted a slumped posture. 

 (left) Young child sitting well on grass lawn. ; (right) Teenage girl and friend sitting on bench, slumped.
Young children instinctively sit and stack their spine in a healthy alignment. In later years, poor role models and time spent sitting on poor furniture usually result in a tucked pelvis and hunched posture that distends back ligaments and compresses discs and nerves. Images: Pixabay(left), Pixabay(right) 

Antique dolls

Among the Gokhale Method teachers who have developed a fascination for dolls and their posture, Aurelia Vaicekauskas has taken this to a new level in making her own, based on antique designs. When she began 20 years ago, she used FIMO for the head, arms and legs, and cloth for the body, and then got into paper-mache. She explains:

This was well before I encountered the Gokhale Method®, so they all had their necks curved, and chins pointing out. Once I started with the Gokhale Method, the unfinished heads that at the time were sitting on the shelf started to bother me. So I got to chiseling at the “offending” curvy necks. That’s my new project, to see what I can do to make them more posturally healthy.

Two paper-mache dolls heads fashioned by Aurelia Vaicekaukas
Since learning about healthy posture, our Gokhale Method Teacher in the Chicago area, Aurelia Vaicekauskas, has been remodeling the dolls she makes. The older head (left) still has a more curved neck and raised chin. . .the larger, more recent one (right) has a taller, straighter neck, and its chin angles down. . . You can learn how to gently align and lengthen your neck here.

Antique Austrian wooden doll, unclothed, from c.1850.
Aurelia notes that this antique Austrian doll from c.1850 has a typically tall, straight neck. (Image from The Complete Book of Doll Making and Collecting, by Catherine Christopher.)

Antique American Schoenhut footballer doll, wood, clothed, from 1915.
A footballer doll by Schoenhut, 1915, U.S. These wooden dolls were the first in the world to have compressed spring metal joints and holes in their feet, which allowed them to be posed. Feet facing out rather than straight ahead was common until the second half of the twentieth century (Image from The Complete Book of Doll Making and Collecting by Catherine Christopher.) 

Baby Dolls

For many of us, girls especially, our first introduction to dolls is not the teen or adult doll, but a baby doll. Often, the characteristics of healthy posture which are so clear in infants, such as externally rotated legs, posterior shoulders, open chest, and a centrally balanced head, are particularly well observed. 

Vintage baby doll, plastic, clothed, from 1920s or 30s.
“I just cannot take my eyes off her”
Our Gokhale Method teacher in France and Israel, Michal Tal, was thrilled to find this little vintage doll at a flea market last year. It's from the 20s or 30s, and the arms and legs are attached with elastic. Its form and posture closely matches that of the baby below.

Baby sitting in healthy stacked position, back view.

The styling of dolls often reflects natural baby proportions—like the relatively large head size and disproportionately small hands and feet—and exaggerates them. Capturing a figure’s essential characteristics and magnifying them is an important aspect of any doll's appeal, including when they are fantasy characters—or even aliens!

Vintage doll, Ultraman Ace and motorcycle, from Japan, 1972.
This 1972 friction-driven Ultraman Ace and motorcycle from Japan shows more typically modern, slumped posture. From Japanese Toys! Kokeshi to Kaiju, San Francisco Airport, Terminal 3, 2013–14.

Antique dolls generally reflect the healthier posture of bygone eras. By contrast, modern dolls, especially from the 1960s onwards, reflect the tucked pelvis, rounded upper back, and forward head carriage that we have gradually drifted into and which is now so predominant that it passes as normal for our species. Barbie is a welcome exception to this pattern.

Wonder Woman

One of our regular 1-2-3 Move participants, Anita Medal, is a longtime fan and collector of Wonder Woman, and has generously shared her passion with us.

Part of Gokhale Method 1-2-3 Move participant Anita Medal’s Wonder Woman doll collection.
These dolls are just a small part of Anita’s Wonder Woman collection. It is interesting that some are modeled to have a more muscular, athletic appearance than others. Muscular contours, like the plumpness of babies, are much easier to replicate in modern plastics rather than wood.


1-2-3 Move participant Anita Medal showing us her original 1942 Wonder Woman doll.

Anita explains the personal inspiration and support she found in Wonder Woman in this interview. She points out that this was three years before she started her 1-2-3 Move sessions and was able to make her posture healthier:


Anita admires Wonder Woman’s qualities:

She fights for goodness, she fights for justice, but also she is wise like Athena—she has intelligence. She has physical strength, which I think is important. She’s swift, like Mercury, she’s compassionate and caring. She's honest, but also, she is beautiful. I think beauty is important. She is the best that she can be.

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like insight on your posture, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

You can sign up below to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops. . . 

Eyeglasses, Posture, and Headaches

Eyeglasses, Posture, and Headaches

Esther Gokhale
Date

Vision and headaches

We know that challenges with our vision can cause headaches. Squinting in bright light or straining the eyes to bring hazy text into focus can easily result in strain or pain in the eyes, temples, top of the head, or elsewhere. 

What is less widely acknowledged is that wearing prescription glasses can also cause headaches. An overlooked cause of headaches—and other pains too—is the poor posture we often adopt when wearing glasses. In this post I will be looking at the posture traps to avoid with eyewear—and how to turn wearing glasses to your postural advantage. 

Woman at desk with headache, head in hands.
Wearing glasses can solve headaches—or cause them if they lock you into poor posture. Pexels

The eye test

Let’s start with the eye test. Your optician or ophthalmologist uses various machines to measure eye pressure and light refraction, and to look at the cornea, iris, lens, and retina of the eye in microscopic detail. During these examinations you want to bring the apparatus as close to you as possible, and/or hinge at the hips to angle yourself forward. Apply the “spoon to your mouth, not your mouth to the spoon” principle; rather than jut your neck out for extended periods, minimize distortion to its delicate structures.

Man leaning in to rest his chin on a machine for eye examination by an optometrist.
Various types of eye examination will require you to crane your neck forward to rest your chin
and forehead against supports. Wikimedia

Getting fitted for your glasses

Always be in your best possible position when you get your glasses fitted. Your optician or optometrist is an expert in eye care, but not in posture. They will likely overlook any degree of slump (or sway) in your back, and the resulting compensatory chin lift, and fit your glasses accordingly. In this way, they will unwittingly build in a bias that compresses your neck.

You want your head “back home," as it was when you were a young child. Let your chin angle down, your neck be tall, and your head be back, aligned over your body. You can learn how to lengthen your neck and restore healthy alignment here. This will direct your gaze more down your nose. Maintaining healthy posture while choosing and wearing your glasses will avoid compression and the wear and tear and headaches it brings.

Drawing with three heads—in forward, tilted upward, and well-aligned positions.
Avoid both letting your head drift forward (left) and lifting your chin (center), both of which compress the nerves, discs, bones, and tissues in the back of the neck and are a common cause of headaches and degenerative changes in the cervical spine. 

Progressive lenses call for progressive posture

Progressive lenses are a great boon for many wearers. These lenses can combine several prescriptions in one, allowing you to focus on things near, far, and in between, regardless of what distance your eyes do best. For example, a progressive prescription for farsightedness, a common condition as we get older that makes close work like reading difficult, will have a stronger magnification at the bottom of the lens which makes it perfect for close-up tasks such as reading phones and books—or laptops and tablets—or, a little further away, working at the kitchen counter. However, there are particular posture considerations when it comes to progressive lenses:

  1. If you have your chin up when you are measured for a progressive prescription, then you will be obliged to hold this compressed, chin up position whenever you need to see things up close—which could be for hours at a time. Additionally, you are training yourself to compress your neck as a baseline position. 
  2. If you use progressive lenses for close-up work ahead of you, such as looking at a desktop computer screen or reading sheet music (or conducting an eye test!), you will be obliged to lift your chin to peer through the “sweet spot.” We strongly recommend having a pair of “computer glasses” which enable you to position your head in a healthy position.
  3. If your vision deteriorates further and you do not update your prescription, you will be obliged to increasingly lift your chin to peer through the greater magnification lower in the lenses. It is therefore important to have your eyes tested regularly. 

Man wearing glasses at desk using laptop, neck , head, and eyes comfortably angled down.
Progressive lenses can work well for looking down at books, tablets, and laptops. Pexels

Woman at desk using computer, body rounded and chin lifted to focus on screen through glasses.
Relying on the reading area at the bottom of a progressive lens will lock you into poor posture at a desktop computer. Pexels

Bending forward or down

You want your frames to fit your head and the bridge of your nose perfectly, so that you won’t tip your nose up to keep them from sliding off. Test the glasses properly for size and grip when you buy them. A good optician will be able to make adjustments to most frames to fit you optimally.

  Woman bending, back rounded and chin lifted to keep glasses from sliding off. 
Don’t let poorly fitting glasses compromise your bending, making you round your back and crunch your neck. 

Woman hip-hinging, back and neck straight and parallel to floor, glasses staying in place.
You want to hip-hinge as well as you know how, maintaining length through your spine. 

Choose larger lenses 

Habitually seeing the world through lenses, even sunglasses, tends to somewhat limit the movement of the eye and increases our reliance on turning the neck. Infants and people in traditional societies show a preference for bigger eye movements rather than bigger neck movements. 

Young schoolgirl in Otavalo, Ecuador, moving her neck a little—and her eyes a lot. 
This young girl at school in Otavalo, Ecuador, moves her neck a little—and her eyes a lot. You can read more about eye tracking here.

We recommend you choose good-sized lenses that lessen the tendency to “tunnel vision," and avoid thick frames that block your peripheral vision. Contact lenses can go a long way to restoring this freedom, so you may want to consider them too.

A well-fitted pair of glasses can even be a reminder to find your best head, neck, and body alignment. Muster all the elegance you might bring to wearing a crown. 

Audrey Hepburn removing her sunglasses, still from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
Audrey Hepburn knew how to use both her eyes and her sunglasses to good effect—and with strikingly good posture! (from Breakfast at Tiffany's). Wikimedia

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like insight on your posture, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

We are offering a Posture Remedies for Text Neck Free Online Workshop on June 1 at 4 p.m. PST. You can sign up below to join any of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops.

Posture Tips for Meditators

Posture Tips for Meditators

Esther Gokhale
Date

It has been over 60 years since Eastern schools of meditation became widely known in the U.S. and Europe, and meditation became widely practiced, with over 14% of Americans having meditated at least once. If we include those practicing mindfulness techniques, using meditation apps, and attending yoga classes with a meditation component, this figure goes far higher.

The effects of sitting in meditation

The potential benefits of meditation are well known, and include a calmer, clearer mind, lower levels of stress, better sleep, improved relationships with others, and better mental health. 

From a posture perspective, whether you sit in meditation regularly or are just getting started, you want the experience to be as healthy for your body as it is for your mind. 

Tradition and seated meditation

North Indian Buddha figure with healthy form, 7th–8th century C.E..
This North Indian Buddha figure shows healthy form. He has a well-stacked spine, open shoulders, and an elongated neck. (Post Gupta period, 7th8th century C.E..)

Westerners often try to be “authentic” in their meditation by sitting cross-legged on the floor, as is portrayed in most traditions. This is particularly difficult for people who have not grown up regularly sitting this way. It may be that practitioners manage to cross their legs, but then their pelvis is not able to tip forward. Their hip joints will not have developed in childhood and ossified in their teens for unaided cross-legged sitting to be a truly comfortable and biomechanically available option. 

Common problems in upright seated meditation

With the pelvis tucked, meditators have two options, both of them unhealthy:

  1. Sitting on their tail bones in a relaxed but slumped position, which will put their spines into a C-shape that overstretches the ligaments of the SI joints and spine, and compresses the spinal discs and nerves. Such collapsed posture restricts the lungs, stomach, and other organs. It also deconditions the deep inner corset muscles that are there to regulate spinal alignment “in the background” during healthy sitting. 
  2. Sitting tucked but holding themselves upright by tensing the back muscles. Many meditators and yoga practitioners are so familiar with this effortful solution to being upright that they don’t realize that they are doing it, or recognize it as poor posture. 

It takes freedom in the hip socket to allow the pelvis a good range of motion, rotating forward (anteverting) around the head of the femurs—then the spine can articulate at L5-S1 to stack upright and the back muscles can relax. You can read more about healthy pelvic anteversion here

Man and woman on beach meditating. Crossed legged and slumped.
The man’s notably tucked pelvis is sending his spine into a C-shape. Their upper backs are rounded, compressing the base of the neck and lifting the chin to face forward. Pexels

Man on mountain top meditating. Crossed legged and arched.
This man is holding himself up with tension in his back muscles. He can learn to antevert his pelvis to find its natural L5-S1 angle, allowing his back to be upright and relaxed. To get there we recommend a suitable wedge along with some posture know-how. Pexels

Woman on beach near sea, meditating. Crossed legged and arched.
This woman is getting some anteverting benefit from the slope of the beach, but is used to swaying her lumbar area rather than having a healthy angle lower down at L5-S1. Unsplash

Chinese Buddha figure with slumped posture, 338 C.E..
This Chinese Buddha figure shows surprisingly slumped posture. Note the forward head, absence of a stacked spine, and tucked pelvis. With a tucked pelvis slumping is the only relaxed option for sitting.

The hunched figure above is the oldest Chinese Buddha figure that has survived into modern times. The inscription on its base dates it to 338 C.E., 500 years after Buddhism came to China from India. Why does the hunched posture of the Chinese figure compare so poorly with the Indian figure (top)? It is reasonable to suppose that while crossed legged sitting was the norm in India, a warm country where much of the population sits on the floor to gather, eat, socialize, and more, in China, with its generally cooler climate, sitting crossed legged was consciously adopted for meditation but was not a widely used sitting position.   

Esther Gokhale stacksitting on a Gokhale Pain-Free Chair.
Here I am stacksitting on the Gokhale™ Pain-Free Chair—my pelvis is anteverted so my spine stacks upright and relaxed, with a healthy angle at L5-S1. This way of sitting enables you to sit in meditation comfortably for prolonged periods if required, and to breathe well. Like all students on the path of postural improvement, I am a work in progress. . .

Appropriate furniture, props, and seating solutions

Most Zen and yoga centers in the West have become more enlightened about the difficulty many people have in sitting on the floor, providing chairs, meditation stools, and cushions for meditators’ comfort. Some more recently established schools, such as Transcendental Meditation, have always encouraged practitioners to use chairs and sofas rather than wrangle with the difficulties of sitting on the floor and working through the resultant aches and pains. 

That said, seeking comfort and back support from soft and poorly contoured modern furniture can also promote slumping, or lead to problematic remedies such as using lumbar cushions which sway the back. You can read more on finding a healthy back rest here, as well as about gentle traction from our Stretchsit® Cushion.

Traditional and potentially effective solutions to help meditators sit without a backrest include the Japanese Zafu cushion, a high, round cushion that can help the thighs and pelvis to angle down, and a low wooden meditation stool used in a kneeling position. The Gokhale™ Wedge is a modern solution to support stacksitting. In all cases, it is important that the practitioner knows how to anchor their rib cage to resist any tendency to sway, and how to find articulation at the lower L5-S1 junction. 

Four props for healthy sitting: Zafu cushion, Gokhale™ Wedge, meditation stool, Stretchsit® Cushion
Four props for healthy sitting (top left to bottom right): a Japanese Zafu cushion, the Gokhale™ Wedge, a kneeling meditation stool, and the Gokhale Stretchsit® Cushion

Healthy sitting makes for healthy breathing

Given that controlled or mindful breathing is part of many meditation practices, it’s surprising how little attention is given to the link between breathing well and sitting well.

Some meditation traditions have mimicked teachers and icons with slumped posture, and teach that the associated abdominal breathing is part and parcel of spiritual practice. This type of breathing, however, results in a soft, expanded belly with low muscle tone, an underdeveloped chest, and inadequate use of the diaphragm and lungs.

Equally problematic is tensing the back to remain upright, which tightens the erector spinae muscles and restricts the diaphragm and ribs at the back. It takes stacksitting with a J-spine to let the breath work its magic—bringing a natural massage to your spine, better circulation, and length, strength, and flexibility to the musculoskeletal parts of the torso.

Chop wood, carry water, preserve your posture

There is a traditional Zen Buddhist koan (puzzle/story): 

The novice says to the master, "What does one do before enlightenment?"

"Chop wood. Carry water," replies the master.

The novice asks, "What, then, does one do after enlightenment?"

"Chop wood. Carry water."

Women in Burkina Faso carrying large loads on their heads.
Chopping wood and carrying is part of everyday life for millions of people in traditional communities—and it is done with healthy posture.

Of course there are various interpretations of this koan, including that the most pedestrian of activities are also the most sacred. From a posture teacher perspective, the koan reminds us that in the pursuit of spiritual (or mental) development, we should continue to engage with the physical foundations of life. Not only are the body, mind and spirit intertwined, but a healthy body can also help support our other endeavors.

Breaking free from old habits

Meditators often come to work with us because they are frustrated by their pain and struggle to be comfortable. In our experience, though meditators are extensively trained in matters of the mind, the training of the body lags behind. Our teachers have expertise in identifying and solving systemic postural errors in meditation and other activities, and are ready to support you on your meditation and life journey.  

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like insight on your posture, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

You can sign up below to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops.

How Do I Fix My Neck Pain?

How Do I Fix My Neck Pain?

Esther Gokhale
Date

Do you suffer from neck tension, muscle knots, or tingling in your fingers? Do you get frequent headaches?

Or maybe your neck is fine most of the time, but seizes up periodically, leaving you unable to function normally in your job, family life, and recreational activities.

Drawing of woman wearing cervical collar
A soft cervical collar is a common prescription to alleviate neck pain. It can give welcome support in the short term, but doesn’t help to strengthen your neck or get to the source of the problem. Wikimedia Commons

Most neck pain involves compression. 

In modern cultures, the head often drifts forward as we slouch and crane our necks towards our computer screens. The weight of the head, (typically 11 lb. or 5 kg—think bowling ball), then requires the muscles at the back of the neck to contract strongly to keep the head up. This contraction compresses the relatively delicate tissues in the area. Not a recipe for a healthy, happy neck. If you have forward head carriage but are symptom-free so far, keep reading for tips that will prevent future problems with the discs, nerves, blood vessels, and bones in your neck.

Man using desk computer, slumped, with forward head carriage
In our culture slumped desk work posture and a degree of forward head carriage is common. Pexels

Restoring the natural length and position of your neck

Young children, ancestral populations, and people living in traditional societies around the world preserve a natural head carriage that stacks the neck well as part of a healthy J-spine. This allows the head to be balanced with only appropriate muscular effort, and the neck to be tall and free from compression. 

Young child with well-aligned neck
As young children we instinctively align our neck well over our body. Pexels

Restoring mobility in your neck

Perhaps you have experienced increased stiffness and reduced mobility in your neck over the years? Or unpleasant gritty sounds when you turn your head? Beware of exercises that include extreme flexion, extension, or head circles. These movements, taken to the end of your range of motion, can damage your discs and pinch your cervical nerves. If they are a part of your exercise regimen, consider reducing their range. 

Diagram showing the bones, discs, nerves, and major blood vessels of the neck.
There are many delicate and vital structures within the neck, so we first want to align it well. (front view). Wikipedia

In our experience it is best to focus on restoring the neck to a healthy baseline length and shape that centers your head well on your spine. The video below shows you how to proceed:

This gentle movement will help you to find a safe, natural trajectory to get started on gliding your head up and back.

If you have areas of long-standing rigidity or curvature in your neck, it is likely linked to your postural distortions elsewhere in your body, for example thoracic rigidity or a tucked pelvis. 

Expect this to take more time and training to change, for which you will be rewarded with additional benefits including comfort, improved circulation, and increased energy.

Finding your neck strength 

While many of the neck’s structures are delicate, they can also be strong. The deep muscles that are intended to support the neck and keep it tall tend not to get used very much in modern industrial culture and are often weak. Besides doing strengthening exercises, as is common in conventional approaches to neck problems, learning to carry weight on the head is extremely valuable. 

Woman in Odisha, India with a tall, straight neck and functional head posture.
People in traditional societies preserve a taller, straighter neck, and more functional head posture. (Odisha, India)

Cultures that headload suffer much less neck pain than we do and can teach us much about how, where, and why to headload. Not only do these people have excellent neck health, but they also have excellent posture throughout their bodies, and move with elegance and efficiency. Students in our classes begin with light weights to sense the axis along which they need to stack their bones. Over time, the weight can be increased to further strengthen the longus colli, inner corset, and other muscles. 

Student learning to head-load in glidewalking, guided by Esther Gokhale.
The small extra weight of the Gokhale™Head Cushion enables students not only to strengthen the deep neck muscles and lengthen the neck, but also to better orient their entire skeleton. 

My book 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back has many images of people throughout the world headloading. Healthy head carriage, as opposed to forward head carriage, is an important starting point for this activity. It is not possible to carry significant weight without both the healthy neck alignment and strength to avoid compressive forces.

Woman showing an elegant, well-aligned head and neck (Thailand)
A well-aligned head and neck is both highly functional—and elegant

Because about one in three adults are affected by neck pain every year¹, we introduce techniques for the neck early on in our in-person Foundations course (Lesson 1 of 6), in our one-day Pop-up course, and our online Elements course (Lesson 4 of 18). Here students learn in detail the gentle techniques that gradually return the neck towards the length and pain-free position we all enjoyed as infants. Whatever your age, your neck is something you can learn to once again stack in your favor.

References: 

  1. Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), “Neck Pain: Overview,” InformedHealth.org, last modified February 14, 2019, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK338120/.

Best next action steps for newcomers

If you would like insight on your posture, consider scheduling an Initial Consultation, online, or in person.

You can sign up below to join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops. . .

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