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06 Sept 2025

HEALTH Dealing with neck and shoulder pain

21 Feb 2012 12:56 PM

This simple set of exercises for the shoulder and neck muscles is designed to relieve tension and ease pain
Weight on your shoulders, pain in the neck


Yoga
Lee Kennedy

Neck and shoulder problems are very common. Stress and tension can also have a negative impact on those areas. The following set of simple exercises can help release that tension and care for the muscles.
The great thing about these stretches is that you don’t need a lot of space or time to do them, but can feel the benefits straight away.
  • Exhale and slowly lower the chin to the chest, creating a long, gentle stretch along the back of the neck. Take several slow, deep breaths with the chin down. Lift the head back up on inhalation and repeat again.
  • Exhale and slowly lower the right ear toward the right shoulder. Don’t worry if it doesn’t reach. Breathe into the gentle stretch created along the top of the left shoulder and the left side of the neck. Take several slow deep breaths. Inhale and raise the head back up. Repeat on the other side.
  • Follow the instructions for ear-to-shoulder, then roll the chin down toward the chest, across the chest and up the other side, exhale then roll the chin down across the chest and up the other side. Inhale and raise the shoulders up to the ears, pulling them up as high as they’ll go. Then let go with an exhalation and drop the shoulders back down. Repeat several times.
  • Raise the shoulders up, rotate them back and down, forward and up again. Repeat several times then go in the opposite direction.
  • Now try this following stretch for the shoulders using a belt or strap: Sit in any comfortable position. Hold the belt and straighten the arms forward, move the arms up until they are overhead, exhale bring them down behind you. Coordinate this movement with your breathing, making the movement smooth. Make sure the strap is sufficiently long and the hands sufficiently far apart, so that you can keep the arms straight. If you cannot keep the arms straight, lengthen the strap – the idea is to circumscribe as large a circle as possible.
Lee Kennedy has a Yoga-teaching Diploma from the YTTC and an Iyengar-teaching Certificate from BKS Iyengar Yoga UK. She also specialises in natural birth with yoga and Thai yoga massage. For current local and private classes, phone 086 3906343.

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