Whiplash Help

Jul 12, 2007 23:21

I was on my tribe account and saw a post on the Bellydance Health tribe from someone asking about Whiplash.  this is a topic I have been wanting to write about.  I still want to add more but I thought this would be a great post all by itself.

Whiplash is one of those things that can stick around for many many years. The only real way, that I know of, is to reset the motor control center to use the front and back muscles properly.

The human body learns through failure (as odd as that may sound) so during the accident when your neck was whiplashed the muscles stopped working - they failed, and then tried to compensate for that failure. In most whiplash cases the front of the neck is what stops working and the back of the neck will then compensate and be programmed to handle the job of moving the front of the neck from then on.

Once the motor control center learns something, unless it fails again, it will keep doing it that way no matter how silly it seems. it worked once so it keeps doing it.

When I work on clients to correct this issue I use muscle testing to find out just how the neck is or is not working. Then I re-program the motor control center to use the front as well as the back muscles to move the head. To correct this on yourself I suggest the you do the following:

Begin lying down, facing the ceiling and use very small movements.
Try to begin to lift your head and then rest. while resting, massage the back of your neck. then try to do the lift again. Repeat this about three times.
Next turn your head so only one of your eyebrows is pointing toward the ceiling and begin to lift and rest. Massage the back of your neck that was closest to the ground. repeat three times.. then do the other side.

Stop here.

After a few hours pass do it again. You should feel it become easier to lift your head further and further off the floor / table / bed.

after a few days of this, when it starts to be come easier, add in pressing your head back then lifting your head. once you do this, lifting your head will become harder to do. This is expected. Massage the neck, lift head. Press head back, lift head massage neck lift head. do this three times.

do this for a few days.

What you are doing with these steps is reprogramming the back of the neck to stop compensating for the front of the neck and let the front of the neck do its job.

you could also have someone else rub your neck, if that's easier on your upper body. it needs to be done in a short time span, say 30 seconds or less for each of the massage steps.

Hope this helps.

Scott

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