Cervical spinal stenosis means you've got pinched nerves in your neck out here on the
sides or in the middle of the spinal cord, you've got to be careful so that you don't
irritate one of the nerves coming out in the side of the neck so that you don't cause neck
arthritis problems or cause muscle strains or get a herniated disc here on the neck.
In this video, I'm going to tell you 10 Things that you should avoid. If you have painful neck,
cervical stenosis. Number one is aggressive neck stretching, very often one of the first exercises
that people will do if they've got cervical stenosis is they'll start to bend their neck
and all the different directions you can go. So push their head down to look up all the way
to the sides this way in this way, and in the rotate to the different sides,
they might even do combinations of the motions, like they'll tip their head and rotate and extend
back. All of those are okay to do as long as they're not aggressive. And you need to
realize that they're not solving the root problem of taking pressure off the joints,
because that's why stenosis happens. It's more so just increasing the
mobility so that you can get some short term relief. So if you're going to do any sort of
neck range of motion movements or stretches, make sure that they're light, not aggressive,
make sure that they don't leave you feeling worse afterwards. If you do any sort of neck stretching,
it should lead you feeling better, and not like you overdid it somehow.
If you do get aggressive with stretching, it'll cause the muscles in your neck and shoulders
to want to contract, which fights against the stretch, and then actually causes more
compression in your neck joints, which over time leads to worse and worse stenosis. Number two is
aggressive shoulder stretching, like the neck, you don't want to be over stretching your shoulders.
And the most common one that people do is they'll get up against the wall and the lean out this way,
or they'll get in a corner with both hands this way and lean into it this way. And that is not
a good thing. Because of the posture that people's neck gets into most of the time.
Whenever they're against a wall doing this, the head starts to jump forward. And that forward
motion in your neck causes compression in the joints of the neck. This also tensions the nerves,
because those nerves that come out of your neck right here, they run down into your
arm and all the way to your fingertips. So if you put a big stretch on them, and
then stretch your neck out forward, it actually can irritate nerves that are already slightly
compressed up in your neck and light stretching, like what I said with the neck is usually okay.
Again, you have to judge how you feel afterwards. And if you feel better, and not necessarily worse,
then it's okay to do it on a light intensity, but avoid stretching your shoulders aggressively.
The third activity you should avoid is shoulder pinching exercises. These are often done in
physical therapy clinics are recommended all over the internet for cervical stenosis problems. And
the way this looks is you'll usually get like a rubber band, and you start from this position
right here and then you pull and when you pull your pinching your shoulder blades back together.
And this might stretch things out a bit, it may feel good in the short term to do this.
The problem is, the muscles that you're activating, when you do that shoulder pinching
exercise, tend to be the rhomboid muscles. And those muscles run from these vertebrae right here
and then they go downwards from up here to the shoulder blade. And because of their attachment,
if you understand the mechanics of all this, it actually makes your shoulder blade tip down on
the outside, this downward tip on the outside of your shoulder blade actually stretches out
the upper traps, which adds more compression. So to simplify that it just sets off a chain
reaction of events in the shoulder and neck that worsen next enosis. Now the intent by
healthcare professionals whenever they give people this exercise is to exhaustively work
all the muscles in the shoulders, and specifically working on this motion.
They're trying to help people improve their posture because they're assuming that somebody's
postures like this, and it's causing their neck stenosis, or it's part of the problem.
And so by getting the muscle stronger, that pinches shoulder blades back there,
hoping to get them in more of an upright posture, but they're missing the boat on this, you actually
need to get stronger your muscles that make you go upwards like this, because that takes pressure off
the neck joints. More on that coming soon. The fourth thing that you should avoid is
activities. That jar your body. I'm talking about like riding a motorcycle if you're if
you're in a vehicle and it makes your body shake and move like this, your neck doesn't
have as much stability as it normally would because you have a muscle imbalance. And so
your joints are overly compressed. And if they get jolted all of a sudden,
it can easily send you into a strain of some sort. It'll irritate the joint and it'll feed into the
stenosis problem gradually over time. So things like bike riding Like bicycle riding motorcycle
riding roller coasters, off roading, like going on a four by four and going over,
you know, where there's no roads riding on a dirt road that's bumpy, and also operating
heavy machinery because those don't tend to have the best shock absorption system.
And they also don't tend to go on roads always. So those rides can get pretty bumpy. If you know
of any public transportation that you might be doing or any sort of activities that you're doing
that jolt your body. Another common one could be like horseback riding, these activities tend to
strain your neck over time. And it may not be one sudden jolt, it may be more of an accumulation of
small gradual jolts that just wiggle your neck over time and cause your neck to not be happy by
the end of the day or that time period that you were doing that activity. So plan accordingly.
Whenever you have to get around somewhere you're outdoors traveling, number five is sleeping face
down. And it may seem kind of obvious, but you may be in the habit of falling asleep
facedown or trying to sleep in an in a different position, and then ending up facedown and then
work waking up with worse neck pain. As the days and weeks go on, you need to make a good
effort to sleep on your side or on your back. Doing this will help you to feel better in the
morning and stop the progression of stenosis so that you can begin to fix the root problem.
And of course, getting more sleep is always a better thing for your overall health helps keep
you from getting sick, and gives you the energy to go exercise in the right ways to solve your
stenosis problem. And I recommend getting a contoured memory foam pillow like these.
Now, this isn't going to work for everybody. It's not a one size fits all thing. But I put a pillow
in the description below. That's memory foam like this one, and it's contoured. And the way that you
use it is you put the contour towards you towards the shoulder. And when you lie down on your side,
your neck fits in that contour so that you're most comfortable, like so.
And if it's flat on the other end, if you end up lying on your back,
then you want to put that flat end on your back and lie like this, you could put other pillows on
the sides that you feel like your head is going to just turn over once you fall asleep and you
lose control of your body, you got to figure out what works best for you to get the best sleep.
And if you're somebody who likes to sleep on their stomach, you might need to hold on that
now I'm not saying that you can never ever sleep on your stomach. I'm saying just for a time,
why your necks flared up and you're on in the process of fixing that neck stenosis problem,
then once you feel better, you should be able to get back to sleeping face down.
Number six is heavy lifting. When you pick up something that's
heavy for you, it causes you to strain throughout your whole body, which includes the muscles in
your neck that might already be compressing your neck too much. So heavy lifting is relative,
it's proportional depending on what your ability is. Now, this is 25-35 pounds, I can do this okay,
without feeling like I'm straining a lot before. But for somebody who's not that strong, this may
be quite a bit of weight for them. And they should not be doing it, especially on a repeated basis.
Like if you go lift weights in the gym. But heavy lifting inevitably happens at
home doing normal everyday tasks and chores like imagine picking up a heavy basket of
laundry or straining to put the bedsheets on the bed reorganizing and decorating for
the holidays or school organizing your home moving furniture, taking care of children and
lifting them up can also be pretty straining. So make sure you plan accordingly. And if you
can get help great, or you might just need to say no in some cases to preserve your neck while it's
flared up. Now bear in mind, this specific thing that I'm telling you to avoid isn't going to be
an always thing kind of like with asleep. It's just what you don't have the strength.
As you get stronger and you're fixing the root problem, then you should be able to get
back to lifting heavy things and straining and it will be okay for your neck. Number
seven is holding your phone between your shoulder and your ear like this. I mean,
it looks terrible for your neck already. But some people just do it subconsciously
they don't realize they're doing it. It's a habit. And if you're in the middle of a conversation,
chances are you're doing other things with your hands. That's why you've put the phone up like
this. And so it's going to strain your neck in a bad way it's going to compress the joints. You
don't want to be doing this at all. And so people will switch sides to kind of balance it out.
But any way you slice it, this is a bad habit to pick up and what you should do instead is
get yourself some wireless headphones. I use the apple air pods I use Apple stuff so it
just works great. They sync fine. You can take calls on them. You just slide them in your ears,
and you can use wired headphones to it really doesn't matter as long as you can
get your hands free so that you're not having to hold the phone up against your shoulder.
Number eight carrying a heavy bag or head The purse, you need to lighten the load in
your bag. If you're somebody who likes to over prepare and make sure that you have everything
you need in your purse or your backpack or whatever it may be, take stuff out because
that pressure on your shoulders pulls down, and the muscle that runs from your shoulder out here
up to your neck is the main one that needs to get stronger in order to fix the imbalance that
feeds the cervical stenosis problem. If you have bags on your shoulders,
or if even if it's just one shoulder, that constant compression of pushing down,
especially if you're carrying it for more than five to 10 minutes or even longer, it
is gradually stretching your neck muscles or your trapezius muscle up here, which adds a compression
to your neck, and it also weakens that muscle. In order to fix the root problem, you're going
to have to strengthen that muscle and carrying a heavy bag is not helping you at all right now,
number nine is resting his treatment. Now resting is okay, for a day or two, maybe three at most,
just take what you need and keep it to a minimum so that you feel better in your neck.
But as soon as you can get back to your normal activities, or at least the majority of them,
whatever you can handle before you feel like you need to lie down and rest your head. But
if you can continue to move, then you keep your joints and your neck moving. And that helps you
to prevent the stenosis from getting worse, the worst thing you can do is lay in bed or
keep your head always constantly supported, and not move your joints because that tends to make
the joints stiffer, the muscles get weaker. And the root problem the muscle imbalances
setting up the stenosis actually will worsen very fast, the weaker that you get. So you're
better off doing what we call relative rest where you're still doing activities, but within
a tolerance within what you can do without your next to Gnosis feeling worse, and the number 10
activity that you should avoid if you have painful neck cervical stenosis is blaming it on age.
Now this one is potentially controversial because if you've been to your doctor, they took an x ray,
they maybe did an MRI on your neck. And then they told you have stenosis in your neck. And you asked
how did they get there? I didn't even do anything. And then they'll say, oh, it's age related. That
is the classic line from every doctor's office after they give you a stenosis diagnosis.
The reason why they're blaming it on age is because they don't really know what causes
it. It's not something that they get in school, it's not something that they know how to treat,
they focus on treating things with medications, and procedures and surgeries. And if it's not
something that can be cured or fixed by medications, procedures and surgeries,
then they don't learn that much about it. Now my specialty is helping people avoid surgery
and solving problems like these. So I focus on muscle imbalances. Now I'm telling you that if
you accept that your next enosis is age related, that leaves you powerless, because you're only
going to get older. That means it's only going to get worse if your belief is that it's age related.
But in reality, if you can control the muscle strength by doing the right exercises,
you can control the pressures on your neck joints, which means you can influence the progression of
neck stenosis or you can slow it down or even stop at it and get the irritation levels down
so that you can feel normal again in your neck. So don't settle on age being the cause of this
problem. Hey, I hope this video was helpful for you give it a thumbs up if it was don't
forget to share it with somebody you think needs to hear this somebody who's suffering
from a stenosis problem. And be sure to subscribe and hit the notification bell so
that you don't miss out on any of our helpful videos. I'll see you in the next video. Bye