Smile with Your Neck and Soften Your Gaze

Let's face it: our modern lifestyle is quite abusive to our necks. According to one article I found in Science Daily, about 20 percent of the population suffers from chronic neck pain. This is due to a number of reasons, with some of the most obvious being driving, sitting (especially in front of a computer), and staring into handheld small-screen devices (often while walking), to name a few. To pick on the latter, which particularly irks me, you have a person, completely disconnected from their surroundings, walking poorly and without regard, with their head down and forward of the rest of the body, and their eyes straining to see and follow what is on the tiny screen. Below is a photo of what I call 'smartphone walking.'

Fig. 1: image from SF Gate; accessed at http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Even-walking-while-texting-can-be-hazardous-3181695.php

In these and other everyday situations, we often assume a slumped forward-head posture due to lifestyle, postural and emotional habits, or mere laziness. Here is schematically how it looks:

Fig 2: image from Optimum Sports Performance; accessed at http://optimumsportsperformance.com/blog/?p=1307

Are you already trying to figure out how to sit or stand better?

This postural pattern simultaneously overstretches and weakens some parts of the back (i.e. the muscles get locked long; for example, the muscles between your shoulder blades), and tightens and weakens other parts of the back (i.e. muscles locked short; for example, the back of your neck, the tops of your shoulders). For every inch your head is forward of the rest of your body, the neck has 10 more lbs to weight bear!). The back body is also known as the Superficial Back Line (SBL) in the language of Tom Myers' Anatomy Trains. The SBL runs from the soles of your feet, up the back of the body, goes over your head like a hoodie and stops just above the brow line. Anatomically speaking, it is the line the makes us characteristically human, i.e. bipeds, that is, it keeps us erect and prevents us from curling into involuntary flexion or fetal position.

For the purposes of this post, I will concentrate on three muscles, which are not all part of the SBL, but all coincidentally start with the letter S: the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) (Fig. 3), the scalenes (Fig. 4), and the suboccipitals (Fig. 5). The SCM is part of both the lateral and the front lines of the body, the scalenes are part of the deep front line (which I discussed here in relation to the tongue) and are the second most important breathing muscles after the diaphragm (also part of the core line), and the suboccipitals are part of the superficial back line I mentioned above, often considered the functional fulcrum of that line and the key to unlocking tension anywhere along this line (including these tight hamstrings, which leave you feeling hamstrung in yoga class or while you are trying to tie your shoe laces).

Fig. 4: Scalenes from the back, http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/480396/view

Fig. 3: SCM from from the side http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/196330/view

Fig 5: Suboccipitals, http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/480365/view

But before I address these muscles and how you can smile with your neck and with your eyes, I would like to make sure that we are all on the same page. Forward head posture and neck strain do not begin in the neck. I am generalizing but slumping when sitting (the preferred way to sit) and the resulting collapse in the pelvis is where it all begins and travels up. That is, you are not sitting on the fronts of your sit-bones (sometimes called the "feet of the pelvis") but way behind them. I'll get back to this in a moment.

So, when this happens and we end up in some variation of Fig. 2, the SCM and the scalenes have no choice but to pull the head forward and become very tight and overused, while the deep neck flexors (the muscles running along the front of your cervical/neck spine) will be weak and unused. The deep neck flexors (Fig. 6) are your headstand muscles and the muscles that work to prevent hyper-extension of the neck (crunching/tightness in the back of the neck). When engaged, it will feel like you are getting an inch taller.

Fig 6: Deep neck flexors (middle front), http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/480358/view

At the same time, the compromised position of your pelvis coupled with your need to look forward (to drive, to look at a computer screen, or to look up hastily from your smartphone screen and try to avoid ramming yourself into a streetlight, for example) will cause the suboccipitals to mightily contract (hyper-extending the neck just below the skull). When you do this repeatedly and/or for long periods of time, you end up with tension at the base of your skull, headaches, and neck pain. Moreover, the suboccipitals have a primal connection through your brain to your eyes (and your jaw and inner ear), such that any movement you make with your eyes brings a corresponding movement/reaction in the suboccipitals and along the muscles that traverse your spine and keep you upright. You can now see how having a hard fixed gaze (into a computer screen or at an annoying colleague or relative) can lead to neck strain and pain. Doug Keller calls the suboccipitals the bobble-head muscles. 

So, what can be done? You can bring a smile to your eyes and soften your serious gaze to moisten and relax the suboccipitals and then smile with your neck to soften the sides of the neck (SCM and scalenes), so that the front of the throat goes up and back (that is, the deep neck flexors have a chance at awakening and doing their job).

Here it goes:

Take a blanket and fold it in 2 or 3 and place it at a wall. Sit on the blanket (or blankets if you need more) in an easy cross-legged position with your back against the wall such that your hips are higher than your knees (throughout this practice, the back of your pelvis and the backs of your shoulders around the blades will be the touch points with the wall). When this is the case, you will be able to find and sit on your sit-bones and have a neutral pelvis (not tipping too far forward, nor too far back). The standard metaphor is to imagine your pelvis as a bowl full of water and you are trying not to spill the water. As you root your sit-bones into the blankets, think of lengthening the space between the top of your pelvis and the floating ribs. Use the wall for support and gently press the backs of your shoulders into the wall, and release the tops of your shoulders downwards like a drape dress, taking care not to pull your arms down. Lift the low belly up, but leave the groins heavy. (If you feel like your low front ribs are poking forward, soften them towards the back body and see if you can balance this action with keeping your pelvis neutral.) Close your eyes and turn your inner gaze down towards your lungs and your heart. Ever so slightly, bow your forehead towards your chest and gently lift the top of your chest towards your chin. Pay attention and see if that releases any amount of tension from the base of the skull and whether you feel a gentle lengthening there. That's your suboccipitals getting a break. Then, balance the rooting down through the sit-bones with an elongation from the base of the spine all the way up through the crown of the head (which will awaken the deep neck flexors). Keeping all that, take your index fingers to the front of your neck just above the Adam's apple and draw them out to the sides and up towards the tips of the earlobes, and see if you can literally create this gentle shift with the sides of your neck, so that the SCM and the scalenes move back towards the wall and slightly up, lifting the top of your chest. Voila! You have just smiled with your neck! Then, softly open your eyes, keeping the sides of the neck going back towards the wall, and gently slightly lift your head to look straight ahead at the horizon (that would mean not leading with your chin, which will lead to your head falling back on your spine).

The idea of neck smiling came courtesy of Doug Keller. Ultimately, the practice above aims to stack your pelvis, ribcage, and head on top of each other (or move you in that direction) so that you sit more in your gravity line. This is definitely easier said than done, so proceed with mindfulness and inquiry.

You can also bring this into your everyday. Simply, anytime you remember, soften your gaze and mentally bring a smile to your eyes. Then, gently tilt the chin down towards your chest, take the top throat back and up and smile with your neck. Then, just smile!