Neck pain problems often benefit from something called cervical traction.
That's what this device is all about, especially problems like herniated discs in the neck,
neck, arthritis, strain muscles, stenosis, and pinched nerves.
And cervical traction is usually done with big machines.
Sometimes there's big cables, there's harnesses that hold your head up in place.
They're expensive machines found in medical offices.
This little device called the neck and shoulder relaxer by rest cloud claimed to provide cervical
traction with all the big machinery cables and harnesses.
In this video, I'm going to give you my honest physical therapist opinion about the neck
and shoulder relaxer by rest cloud.
First, let's talk about how cervical traction works.
So in the neck, you have all these little bones right here.
And when you have traction put on your neck, it means that something's pulling upwards
on the head.
And it's taking pressure off of the spine here taking pressure off of the joints where
the arthritis happens.
And it takes pressure off the muscles because sometimes muscles get real stiff and tight
because they're working to hold the head up and make sure the neck can support it.
And if you have muscle imbalances, usually there's one set of muscles that are working
too hard.
So getting that traction going through the head can allow those muscles to relax some
there, there's many ways to do cervical traction in those big machines that I talked about
that you find in medical offices are the most commonly done way that the doctors and chiropractors
and physical therapists will do it.
There's also inversion tables, which are commonly used more so far back problems, but it technically
does hang you upside down, which takes pressure off your neck.
But those devices are a little more pricey than the rest cloud.
And they take up a lot more space for sure.
So let me tell you some of the features of the rest cloud.
This is a very lightweight device, it's made out of this very soft foam.
It's stiff, but it has a lot of give to it surprisingly.
And of course the shape of it, this curled shape allows it to have some coil to it where
it gives but then it wants to go back to its original position.
The foam is soft, it doesn't stick to anything doesn't stick to your skin.
So it doesn't pull hair either.
It's quite durable.
We've actually dropped this a couple times already and just bounces.
And this comes in different colors.
And there's even a few varieties other shapes that rest cloud makes.
This is the one that we that we found was the most fun for us.
Now let me tell you some pros and some cons.
We'll start with the pros.
I absolutely love the shape.
It's just a fun thing.
It just makes you want to hold it and use it.
So it's very attractive because of the shape of it.
I also liked that when you use it, it gives you a noticeable improvement.
I laid on this at first for just a couple of minutes and could feel it already pulling
on my neck.
And I was impressed after that line on it for five, even 10 minutes, it just felt like
it got better and better after that.
So this can provide quite a noticeable difference if you're suffering from neck problems.
And the other pro to this is this comes in under $20, which is a couple of bottles of
Advil or Tylenol depending on where you are.
I like this a lot as an option against using pain relievers.
Let me tell you some cons of this.
Now this is light pressure.
There's there's a couple options.
I'll show you more about that here in a moment.
But it's not as much pressure as one of the cervical traction devices that you'd find
in a doctor's office it provides you with usually those devices can be adjusted where
you can take off pounds of pressure, you can take off like 20 3040 pounds, if you want
it to to give a lot of traction through the neck, this isn't going to do that much ahead
of you the weighs anywhere between 1215 pounds, you know, depending on your size, of course,
it can be a little bit more a little bit less than that.
So it's only using your bodyweight to provide the traction, but it's a noticeable difference.
Another con is this is a one size fits all, which I don't think is a big deal.
So far everyone with you, we've used it with here in the office, we have, um six to 225
pounds, and we have some small people that are about 100 pounds.
And everybody's found that it works for them so far.
But my initial thought about this was maybe we need to have like a pediatric size one,
this sort of works for me being a big person, but maybe a small one would work just because
it might be too tall.
But so far everything's worked fine.
Another con is it's difficult to use this in bed, because you do need to put this on
a stiff or at least firm surface.
And if your beds very soft, you might sink into this and it may not give you the same
effect.
So that means that you might end up on the floor with this.
And if you have trouble getting up and down from the floor, this may not work the best
for you, you're going to have to find something stiff to put on your bed in order to get the
best effect out of this.
But if you use a clipboard or a thin heart book, that might be just fine for you.
Here in a minute.
I'm going to tell you how to use this but before we do that, let me just go over some
precautions on using the rest cloud to provide cervical traction or traction on your neck.
Number one if you start to use this and if within a few minutes I'd say literally two
or three minutes at most, you start to get worse neck pain.
This is probably not going to be for you and you need to go talk to a doctor to see what's
going on with your neck.
This should feel good as soon as you start talking Use it.
Otherwise, it's not the device for you.
There's all kinds of neck problems that require different treatments.
And this isn't going to fit every single neck problem, you might need a different treatment
than this.
Another precaution is exercise caution.
If you have any sort of ligamentous problems, like any connective tissue disorders, the
common one is going to be if you're pregnant, especially if you're in the second and third
trimester, there's a hormone going through your body called relaxing that could make
your ligaments stretch out, there's potential for you to cause some harm or overstretched
ligaments if you're being really aggressive.
Now, this is light pressure.
So I think the risk is low.
But just be careful if you're pregnant.
And also you have other connective tissue problems like either stylo syndrome is another
one.
Just use caution, make sure that you're feeling okay and go by that first rule that I told
you, it's getting worse or you feel like it's making things more painful stop using this,
there's some of the treatment that you need to be doing instead, if you've recently sustained
a fracture, like you've broken a bone in your neck, you should not be using this to try
to get pain relief, you need to get in one of those collars, those those stiff collars
that hold you in place for moving, so you can't turn your head.
This is not something to use with any broken bones in your neck or anywhere in your body.
Really, right, let me show you how to use this, come on over here with me, this thing
couldn't be simpler to use, all you're gonna do is put it down on the surface you're going
to use it on, you can flip it around this way or this way.
If this longer part is facing the rest of your body, that's the harder part of the more
aggressive part, which it's not super aggressive at all.
But it's a little lighter if you flip it around the other way.
So I'll show you this side first.
And then we'll go the other side.
The next step is you just lie down on it and put your neck right here.
So your head is going to be on this side looks like this.
You can center it and get it in the right position.
And then you just line it and you just gotta give it a minute.
When I first laid down on this, I honestly thought well, this is kind of anticlimactic.
He doesn't do anything special.
There's there's nothing going on.
And I gave him in a few minutes.
And all of a sudden I felt the distraction happening.
So you just have to kind of relax, wait and rest on it.
And I would try this this way first where it's on, on this more sloped side farther
away from you just to make sure that it's going to be okay on your neck.
And then after you've done this for a few minutes, three, four or five minutes, if you
feel like you want something a little bit more, slightly, very slightly more intense,
then you flip it around the other way and landed this way.
And it just it grabs the back of your skull a bit better this way, and just gives it a
slightly more still gentle pole.
And then you would just relax here, this is something that you could do at the end of
the day.
Especially if you have a computer job if you tend to work at a desk where you're not moving
around a whole lot.
Even if you do have a more active job, maybe you're next time to get position and it starts
to bother you.
Or if you get knots in your shoulders and neck area.
This helps out a lot with just taking some pressure off the neck joints.
Now the surface Amman here is it's soft, but it's still kind of firm, it's definitely going
to be more firm than most beds.
So you might want to put something stiff under the rest cloud here to make sure that it doesn't
sink down too much.
A hardcover book like a textbook would work pretty well.
You just want to make sure it's not too thick, so it's pushing your head upwards, you want
to thin one.
Now keep in mind that this is only going to give you short term pain relief.
It's not designed to cure to fix like a herniated disc problem or a pinched nerve.
You're looking at using this in place of or in conjunction with pain medication.
Or maybe you just stop using pain medication.
If this gives you enough relief from your neck problem.
Let me give you my honest physical therapist opinion about the neck and shoulder relaxer
from rest cloud.
I really liked this device and you know I'm not endorsed by them.
I bought this under my own decision.
They haven't given me anything.
And I can vouch for this for sure is a great introductory neck traction or cervical traction
tool to get some relief.
And I think this is going to shave off some of the pain medication that you might be taking.
If you're suffering from a neck problem, it might buy you that bit more comfort, when
you're really uncomfortable.
If you can't get to bed comfortably, I could see you lying down on this and taking a nap
and it's It feels very comfortable and safe to lie on as long as you don't have any of
those concerns that I mentioned earlier in this video.
Another thing I like about this is if you feel like you've benefited from this like
you put this under your neck and it relieved you that's a good sign that you might benefit
from some more advanced cervical traction in case you're considering going to a healthcare
provider that has cervical traction in their office.
You can be more certain that it's going to help you out if this worked for you.
And of course this is all natural you know it's not putting in anything inside your body.
So it's a great alternative to using pain medications hopefully reduce your your use
of it or get rid of it completely.
But just keep in mind this is only a short term pain relief.
product is not going to solve a problem for the long term, which let's talk about that.
How do you get long term pain relief for a neck problem like stenosis, arthritis, a herniated
disc pinched nerves like cervical radiculopathy is a medical term for that or strain the muscles
in your neck while giving long term relief for those issues typically involves addressing
the root of the problem.
And there's usually a muscle imbalance at the root of the problem.
And we talk all about that here on this YouTube channel.
This channel is focused on making videos with helpful tips, advice, exercises and stretches
for a variety of conditions.
So go check out our playlist tab on this channel.
Or you can even go down to the description below.
We've linked some helpful playlists that might benefit your specific neck problem.
We talk all about solving the root problem for some of these chronic conditions.
Because we strongly believe that there's muscle imbalances that you can control you can get
stronger and the weaker muscles and allow the over dominant muscles to behave more normally,
if you begin to do the right treatment, the right exercise, or the right combination of
things which this might fit into your treatment plan.
So I encourage you to peruse our channel and go check that out.
And I forgot to mention too, if you want to buy one of these, we've linked it in the description
below.
You can get it off of Amazon.
So go use our link and you'll be supporting our channel.
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Thanks so much for watching.
I'll see you in the next video.
Bye bye