Hey, what’s up everybody!
My name’s Dr. Roger Saias, and I’m the clinical director here at PA Pain and Rehab in Philadelphia.
Today, I’m gonna show you three simple stretches for concussion recovery that you could do at home while sitting on your couch watching television, in bed, or at your desk to help in your concussion recovery.
These are really simple exercises that don’t require any equipment and can provide major relief from a head, neck, or whiplash injury.
If you find that these exercises are increasing your pain as opposed to decreasing your pain, discontinue and give us a call so we can figure out what’s going on.
Upper Trapezius Stretch
When you’ve injured your neck and your head, a lot of times the muscles across the top of your back, take a lot of abuse. In our day-to-day lives, we spend so much time looking down in front of us, whether on a cell phone or sitting at a desk. These muscles get strained and will refer pain throughout the upper back and into the head.
Bring your ear to your shoulder on each side. To take it a step further, put your arm behind your back and pull the stretch to off to one side.
We want to feel a nice stretch, it shouldn’t hurt.
Levator Scapulae Stretch
This muscle elevates the scapula. If you’ve injured your neck, the scapula is always involved.
Look to your shoulder and then look down. You can sit on your hand and pull on an angle to open up the stretch even more. This stretch should help to improve range of motion in your neck and decrease strain on the nervous system.
Skull Stretch
Lastly, we want to get a good stretch across the base of our skull and into our upper back. It’s as simple as bending your head forward, and if you want, you can gently take your hand and just push down on
the back of your head to further the stretch.
You’ll feel a pull through the back of your skull and across your upper back. The more advanced you are, the more pressure you can use, but the goal is not to injure the soft tissue. The goal is also not to injure the joints in your neck and make matters worse.
Do these stretches every day. You can’t do these stretches enough. You can hold them for short periods of time, you can hold them for
long periods of time, whichever you choose you just want to make sure you’re making time to do them.
