Stiff neck is no joke for today’s corporate employee. According to one recent study done by the School of Physiotherapy in Sydney, Australia, over 67% of all workers will experience debilitating neck pain at least once during their working lives. 

Beginner’s yoga can be of great help when it comes to relieving the neck pain. By teaching body awareness and proper posture and movement, Yoga fitness can even prevent the neck pain from ever occurring. Self-massage is a yoga technique that is very easy and simple to learn, it is also very easy to include it in the daily routine and this can not only relieve the neck pain but can also prevent it from occurring.
Yoga is best practiced as a whole discipline, not as a pick-and-choose exercise regimen, but starting with some basic poses that keep the neck and spine flexible is perfectly fine. Many people learn a few yoga poses in an attempt to alleviate a specific physical problem, then find that they feel so much better they want to learn more.

Yoga is designed so that one pose naturally flows into another, and the effects soon become much deeper and more general than simple flexing of the specific muscle groups involved.

Dog Pose, the Cobra, and the Downward Facing Dog poses are the best beginner’s yoga poses for prevention and relief of stiff neck.

Dog Pose. The first thing to be done is: bend hands, bring them to your feet and sit like a toddler. Start inhaling deeply and relaxing your spine, tilt your pelvis and your neck and head upwards with your eyes open. Now exhale and while exhaling bend your back in the shape of an arc and tuck your head in toward your knees, start lifting belly up and against your spine just the way a cat does. Start repeating this entire set of movement slowly and in a rhythm. It helps your spine to loosen up and relax.

For the Cobra pose, lie down on the floor face down and breathe deeply. Position your arms on either side of your shoulders as if you are about to do a push up. Inhale slowly and as you do so, push up and extend your spine and neck backward, much like a cobra would, feeling each vertebrae as you move. Hold that a moment, then, as you exhale, slowly move back to a prone position. 

Downward Facing Dog pose is the next in the list. We start with kneeling down and tucking the legs underneath, place your hands on the floor in front of you and head down. Start inhaling and gradually straightening your legs until your body forms a triangle with straight legs, flat hands on floor and head down. Exhale and come back to the kneeling position.

You can perform an easy self-massage that will soothe neck pain right at your desk. Place on arm across your chest. Rub just above the shoulder blade with that hand in a firm circular motion. Repeat one the other side. Now roll your head slowly in a complete circle with your eyes closed. Repeat three times, and then reverse directions. Open your eyes.

An experienced teacher’s guidance is always a good option to get the maximum benefit from beginner’s yoga and self-massage. For the ones who cannot attend the yoga class or have no time to find a teacher, yoga fitness videos are the best alternative.

Yoga has a very simple theory, the longer you practice the better result you will experience. So if you want to get relieved in the neck pain, do not wait, just get started. You can also consult a doctor or a therapist regarding the safe practice of yoga. There are many hospitals that offer a graduated yoga classes on-site for their patients because they agree to the positive effects of regular yoga practice.

Yoga can indeed relieve and prevent neck pain with gentle, progressive instruction. Start slow, be consistent, and soon you will pain-free and calmer and more effective that you ever thought possible.