Trapezius Muscle, Dealing with Back and Neck Pain, Have you ever felt striking pains on the neck and back? We often think that it is because of wrong position when we sleep or lack of stretching before working out or swimming. But some of us sometimes also suffer from it after a long hour work behind the desk. Being in a seating position for hours and working before computers for a long duration of time can bring health risks provided that it is not balanced with physical exercise. The area of trapezius muscle is often suffering from long hours of driving or typing. If your work does require such activities intensely, every day, five days a week, eleven months a year, then you urgently need to figure out something to deal with it.
Common Symptoms
One of the most common symptoms of trapezius muscle injuries or problems would be a feeling of stiffness on the back of the neck, and it goes down to the upper back. Those who drive for hours in terms of duration or repeated and routine activities of driving often feel this. The same symptoms occur on those whose work typing for a long time, like writer, proof reader, data-input personnel, secretary, etc. Sometimes, it is followed by difficulties in breathing. Shallow breathing symptoms are caused by heavy pressures on the back of the neck and it affects the upper back muscles. This makes breathing room in the chest squeezed.
Health Risks
The stories of working double jobs that both require meeting clients, talking and sitting with them to explain some proposals, typing and correcting letters, documents, etc. seem so familiar among us. This is what most professional workers do nowadays, using eight to twelve –sometimes fifteen- hours to work behind the desk. Some variations of work may just be making some copies of documents, walking to the surrounding canteen for lunch and in a week, there is almost no time for a walk in the park or even a simple exercise in the bedroom. Weekends are dedicated for sleep and catching up some works –again-. No wonder, the shortened and tightened trapezius muscle makes us feel even more tired. In fact, these muscles are the most sensitive towards anxiety, stresses, and frustration. These negative feelings make the muscles shorten.
Trapezius Muscle
There are three trapezius muscle area in a human’s body, the lower fibers, middle fibers and upper fibers. All these muscles work together and form the largest muscle connection in our body, visualizing trapezium shape from the back of our neck, go down to the upper part of the back, and down to the area below shoulder blades. They help us to breathe, make neck and head steady when making movements to the back, and support the shoulder blade to make various movements. In some cases, especially those with high blood pressure, increasing value of tension can also make this area become stiff.
Therapy
Therapies on this problem may start from chiropractic consultation up to the easiest improvements that one can do every day. Make sure that the seating position is not bent to the left, right, or down. Keep it straight, and re evaluate the positions of monitor, and keyboard if you still use PC in the office. It may better to use laptop since the position of both monitor and keyboard is straight. Get up and move every hour and keep walking flat. It is okay to walk around the room barefoot sometimes for five to ten minutes just for a break from long hours of sitting.
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