How to Release Neck & Shoulder Tension with Clinical Somatics Exercises

Tension in the neck and shoulders is one of the most common issues I hear about from students. Between the stress we experience in our daily lives and the repetitive activities that most of us do every day, it’s difficult to avoid building up muscle tension in our neck and shoulders!

Luckily, we know how to release that chronic muscle tension—with pandiculation. And you can avoid building up tension on a daily basis by improving your posture, fixing imbalances in your core, improving your body mechanics while doing your daily activities, and reducing stress. In this article, I’ll discuss:

• How your posture and imbalances in your core lead to tension in the neck & shoulders
• How to improve your body mechanics and awareness while doing repetitive daily activities
• How stress contributes to neck & shoulder tension
• The Clinical Somatics exercises that are most effective for releasing neck & shoulder tension

In what ways are your posture and core imbalances contributing to your neck & shoulder tension?

When we feel tense in our neck and shoulders, our first instinct is to stretch those tight muscles or massage them (or if we’re lucky, get someone else to massage them!). But chronic tension in the neck and shoulders is very often a symptom of an imbalance in the core of the body. When the core of the body is out of alignment in some way, or chronically tight with limited movement, excess strain is put on the neck and shoulder muscles.

If an imbalance in the core of the body is pulling the spine out of alignment, then the neck and shoulder muscles have to do extra work to keep the head upright. And if chronic muscle tension is limiting the movement of the spine and ability of the core of the body to bend, twist, and bear weight, then the neck and shoulder muscles have to do more work than they’re designed to do.

Now I’ll discuss the three most basic postural patterns and how they lead to tension in the neck and shoulders.

First, let’s talk about postural kyphosis: this is an exaggerated rounding of the back.

In postural kyphosis, chronically tight abdominal and chest muscles pull the spine forward. This results in the head, neck, shoulders, rib cage, and upper back being pulled forward, in front of the pelvis. The nervous system then automatically contracts the muscles of the back, shoulders, and neck in order to pull the spine backward and prevent us from falling forward.

This typically involves the shoulders rotating inward (so that the backs of the hands face forward rather than out to the side), and often involves forward head posture as well. Of the three basic postural patterns, this one is the most likely to cause neck and shoulder tension.

Since the back, shoulder, and neck muscles must constantly work to help us stand upright, it’s impossible to avoid building up an uncomfortable degree of tension in these muscles. But no amount of stretching, massage, or even pandiculation of the back, shoulder, and neck muscles will solve the problem; you must release tension in the abdominal and chest muscles, which is the root cause of this postural imbalance.

Now let’s talk about the opposite pattern: hyperlordosis.

Hyperlordosis occurs when tight lower back muscles pull the lumbar spine into an exaggerated arch. Most often, people with hyperlordosis will experience lower back tension, pain, and other issues like sciatica or lumbar disc degeneration.

However, people with hyperlordosis may also experience neck and shoulder tension if their abdominals are not engaging as they should. It’s quite common for people with hyperlordosis to have difficulty engaging their abdominals. Their lower back muscles are so tight that they’re actually inhibiting the action of their abdominals.

If the abdominals are unable to engage and do their job of stabilizing the core of the body, the back, shoulders, and neck are forced to do all of the work. This results in excess tension building up in the muscles of the neck and shoulders, and the lower back muscles continuing to get tighter and tighter.

The solution in this case is to use pandiculation to release the tight lower back muscles. This will allow you to start using your abdominals when needed, and to let your neck and shoulders relax and stop doing all that extra work.

The third common postural imbalance is lateral bending.

If the lateral curvature in your spine is more than 10 degrees, you may be diagnosed with scoliosis. However, many people tend to bend slightly to one side or the other, and do not meet the criteria for scoliosis. It’s extremely common to develop more muscle tension on one side of your spine and waist than the other due to repetitive daily activities and handedness.

If you tend to bend slightly to your right side, pulling your right shoulder down toward your right hip, you’ll likely develop more tension on the left side of your neck and shoulders. The tension on the right side of your torso is pulling your head and shoulders to the right, so your nervous system will automatically contract the muscles on the left side of your neck to keep your head upright. So if you tend to bend slightly to your left side, you’ll most likely feel more tension on the right side of your neck.

With that said, we can develop complicated compensatory patterns when it comes to lateral bending, so it’s also quite possible that you’ll feel tension in either or both sides of your neck and shoulders. Just like the two previous postural patterns, in order to fix the problem you’ll need to address the root cause of the imbalance: the tight muscles in the core of the body that are pulling the spine to one side.

What daily activities are contributing to your neck & shoulder tension?

In addition to practicing Clinical Somatics exercises on a regular basis and addressing your postural imbalances, you need to become aware of what daily habits might be contributing to your neck and shoulder tension. You don’t need to stop doing these activities—you just need to adjust your body use when you do them.

Common daily habits that contribute to neck and shoulder tension include:

• Working at computer
• Using your phone
• Driving
• Carrying your bag or child on one side
• Watching TV or reading while slouched or reclined in an unnatural position
• Your sleeping position

Working at a computer: If your job involves computer work, you likely feel the effects of it in your neck and shoulders. Working at a computer involves inwardly rotating your shoulders and bringing your arms forward, more so on one side when you use a mouse. It’s also very easy to adopt forward head posture or rounded posture if you tend to lean in toward the computer screen.

What you can do:

• Zoom into your screen that you don’t have to lean forward to see.
• Adjust your chair, desk, keyboard, and screen position so that you can sit in the most straight, neutral, upright position possible. This should include bringing your screen up to eye level.
• Practice Clinical Somatics exercises that address postural kyphosis (even if you don’t have that posture!). These exercises are listed in the last section of this article.
• Check in with yourself every few minutes and relax your abdominals, chest, and shoulders. Don’t contract your back muscles to force yourself to sit up straight. Instead, relax your abdominals and allow yourself to sit up straight. Likewise, don’t pull your shoulders backward; relax your chest and shoulders and allow your chest to open up and your shoulders to relax out and back into a neutral position. The more often you do this, the easier it will become to stay in a relaxed, upright, neutral posture as you work.

Using your phone: Looking downward at your phone for hours a day will inevitably lead to forward head posture and tension in the neck and shoulders; this is why we see more and more teenagers with forward head posture.

What you can do:

• Use your phone less.
• When using your phone, take frequent breaks to lift your head up and relax into a straight, upright posture.
• Find a way to hold or prop your phone so that you don’t have to look downward.
• If you talk on the phone a lot, put it on speaker or use a headset or earpiece so that you don’t have to hold the phone to your ear. Holding the phone to your ear for long periods of time will lead to chronic tightness on one side of your neck, and likely in that shoulder as well.

Driving: When you’re driving, notice your posture. Do you lean forward or crane your head and neck forward? Do you lean to one side, or use your hands and arms unevenly? Are your shoulders raised up or rounded forward? Do you feel tense?

What you can do:

• Do your best to relax your abdominals, chest, shoulders, and neck as described above in the computer work section. Check in with yourself every few minutes as you’re driving and remind yourself to let go of any unnecessary muscle tension and allow yourself to be in a neutral, upright posture.
• Adjust your headrest to the most comfortable position.
• Try to use both arms evenly to control the steering wheel.

Carrying a bag or child on one side: We tend to carry things like a purse, a backpack, or a baby on the same side all the time. Not only does this lead to tight neck and shoulder muscles, but these simple habits can even lead to side-bending postural patterns like functional leg length discrepancy and idiopathic scoliosis.

What you can do:

• Try holding your bag or your child on the opposite side, and notice how it feels. Try to alternate sides as much as possible, even if it feels awkward in the beginning. It will get much easier with regular practice!

Watching TV or reading while slouched or reclined in an unnatural position: It’s easy to get comfortable in unnatural positions when we’re curled up on the couch relaxing. We may never think about the fact that our head is turned to the side for two hours straight or that we’re hunched in rounded posture. But, letting our muscles adapt to these imbalanced and unnatural positions can cause problems in the long run.

What you can do:

• Use pillows to support your back and neck so that your spine is as straight as possible and you aren’t rounding forward or jutting your head forward.
• Instead of turning just your head to the side to watch TV, turn your entire body so that you can look straight ahead at the TV without turning your head.

Sleeping: The position you sleep in has a big impact on your neck and shoulder muscles. If you sleep on your stomach, you’re spending 6-8 hours per night with your head turned to the side. If you sleep on your side and your spine is out of alignment, your head will be tilted to one side all night. If you sleep on your back with a pillow, you’re spending 6-8 hours per night in forward head posture.

The best sleeping positions to reduce neck and shoulder tension are:

On your back with no pillow: If this is not comfortable, do all of the Arch & Curl variations and the Head Lifts on a regular basis to release your abdominals and chest muscles, and gradually reduce the thickness of your pillow. If your lower back is not comfortable when lying on your back, do the Back Lift on a regular basis, and put a pillow under your knees when you sleep on your back.

On your side with your spine in alignment: Your mattress should allow your shoulder and hip to sink in enough that your spine remains straight when lying on your side. Too firm or too soft a mattress will move your spine out of alignment. Your pillow should support your head and neck so that your cervical spine is straight.

General advice:

• Try to approach all of your regular daily activities with less tension in your neck and shoulders. This will become easier over time with regular practice of Clinical Somatics exercises. You’ll release tension in the core of your body and even out the imbalances in your posture, allowing your neck and shoulder muscles to relax.
• Practice engaging your transverse abdominis muscle to support you when working out or doing any challenging full-body movement. You can learn more about the transverse abdominis in my article Improve Core Stability by Activating Your Transverse Abdominis.
• Take regular “awareness breaks” throughout the day. Take a moment to inhale into your belly, slowly exhale, and let go of any unnecessary tension in your neck and shoulders. The more often you repeat this, the better your nervous system will learn to not hold onto unnecessary tension.

How is stress contributing to your neck & shoulder tension?

There are two main reasons why stress so often leads to tension in the neck and shoulder muscles. The first reason is the withdrawal response.

When we experience negative stress, we instinctively contract our abdominal muscles, raise our shoulders, and pull our head and limbs inward, coming into the fetal position in order to protect the most vulnerable parts of our body. This is the withdrawal response, and it’s hardwired into our nervous system as a means of survival. You may notice yourself slouching forward with raised or rounded shoulders when you feel stressed or fatigued; this is the withdrawal response in action.

When your withdrawal response is triggered repeatedly, your nervous system will start to keep the muscles involved in the response contracted all the time. Gradually, your shoulders will become more raised and rounded, your chest will become concave, and you’ll hold your head farther forward. This is not an inevitable part of aging or a genetic abnormality—it’s simple muscle memory.

You may recognize this posture as being postural kyphosis, which I described in the first section of the article. If you feel that your neck and shoulder tension and/or postural kyphosis is caused by stress and the withdrawal response, you should practice the exercises suggested in the last section of this article. You should also read the rest of this section, which introduces the relationship between chronic stress and muscle tension.

When we experience stress, our muscles tighten and get ready for action. Our postural reflexes (the action response and the withdrawal response) prepare us to either stand up and defend ourselves or curl up into a ball.

Most of us don’t encounter situations on a daily basis in which we have to physically defend ourselves. But unfortunately, emotional, social, and financial problems trigger our stress response in the same way that physical stressors do. It all comes down to perception; if we perceive something to be a threat, our stress response is activated.

But unlike acute physical stress, from which we are quite adept at recovering, psychological stress stays in our minds and constantly activates our stress response. We habitually take shallow breaths, inflating our chest instead of our lower belly, and we find ourselves short of breath. Our muscles stay tight all the time, ready for action. These chronically contracted muscles use a great deal of energy, causing us to feel fatigued.

If you want to learn more about how chronic stress and anxiety lead to muscle tension, as well as five steps you can take to recover from chronic stress and anxiety, please read my article The Life-Changing Link Between Anxiety and Muscle Tension.

The most effective Clinical Somatics exercises for releasing neck & shoulder tension

Below, I’ve listed the exercises from the Level One & Two Courses that are most effective for releasing neck & shoulder tension. You can figure out which of the three basic postural patterns is most dominant for you, and then use these exercise lists as a starting point.

If you’re just starting to learn Clinical Somatics exercises, be sure to read or watch Developing Your Daily Practice.

For postural kyphosis:

Arch & Flatten
Arch & Curl
One-sided Arch & Curl
Diagonal Arch & Curl
Iliopsoas Release
Washcloth: You can feel free to practice just the upper body movement
Flowering Arch & Curl: You can feel free to practice just the upper body movement
Head Lifts
Proprioceptive Exercise 1
Scapula Scoops Part 1
Scapula Scoops Part 2
Diagonal Curl
Shoulder Directions
Seated Twist
Breathing Exercises

For hyperlordosis:

Arch & Flatten
Back Lift
Arch & Curl
One-sided Arch & Curl
Diagonal Arch & Curl
Iliopsoas Release
Washcloth: You can feel free to practice just the upper body movement
Flowering Arch & Curl: You can feel free to practice just the upper body movement
Proprioceptive Exercise 1
Scapula Scoops Part 1
Scapula Scoops Part 2
Shoulder Directions

For lateral bending:

Note: If you have a lateral curve in your spine, or any imbalance between the right and left sides of your body, you should read or watch How to Even out the Imbalances in Your Body and apply those principles to your daily practice.

Back Lift
Side Curl
One-sided Arch & Curl
Diagonal Arch & Curl
Iliopsoas Release
Washcloth: You can feel free to practice just the upper body movement
Flowering Arch & Curl: You can feel free to practice just the upper body movement
Scapula Scoops Part 1
Proprioceptive Exercise 2
Diagonal Curl
Proprioceptive Exercise 3
Shoulder Directions
Seated Twist
Proprioceptive Exercise 4