Health Articles
Discontinue the Desire to Crack Neck Joints
May 26, 2009 by Steve Butler · 6 Comments
Some of us crack neck joints as we feel a certain tightness enveloping our necks. This feeling is particularly strong as we get about doing tasks that require us to hold our neck in one position. For example, you could be driving your car or truck on an interstate trip and typically you would feel the tension building up in your neck muscles after a few hours on the road. This would create a desire in you to take a rest stop and then crack neck joints for relaxing the neck.
This practice is extremely harmful and can cause the muscles that are present in between the neck vertebrae to become more stressed. I think an explanation is in order before you are convinced to discontinue the urge to crack neck joints.
When you manipulate your neck to crack neck joints, the ligaments that are present in these joints get stretched and this in turn will place further strain on your neck muscle groups. This is because they would have to work harder to control the movements of your neck. Now the knotty feeling in your neck muscles will come in shorter intervals as your muscles are taxed. The situation gets progressively bad and increases the risk of lessening the stability of the neck. Yes, it is a fact that when you crack neck joints you are in fact putting yourself at a health risk of having unstable neck joints.
The best suggestion that I can give you if you have just begun giving in to the impulse to crack neck joints is that you discontinue the habit immediately. Let your friends know that you are trying to stop this habit and ask them to stop you if they see you begin to twist your neck with the intention of cracking the neck joints.
If you are interested in dropping the habit of cracking neck joints, I suggest that you visit a physiotherapist. She will advise you on the specific exercise routines that you would have to follow to stabilize your neck muscles. Once the muscles are stronger, you can consult your general practitioner for bringing back the ligaments into proper shape.
You may have to consult a medical specialist if your neck cracks every time you move it. This may be the ultimate warning that the neck joints are giving out to indicate that something is wrong with them. In such cases, you would need specialist care to reconstruct the ligaments to bring your neck joints back into proper working order.
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Hello Steve,
Since about a year my neck cracks and clunks.
The cracking is a bit like how knuckles can crack, although I don’t do anything to make this happen myself. The clunking mostly happens when I move my left ear to my shoulder and then bring my head upright again. I’m about to see my doctor about this. There is no real pain, but frankly I’m very worried.
This sounds reassuring though:
“Once the muscles are stronger, you can consult your general practitioner for bringing back the ligaments into proper shape.”
I always thought ligaments are like elastic bands: once overstretched they never return to their proper shape. How would one get them back in shape though? Through strengthening exercises?
Hello David,
The article was deliberately short as there is so much to this subject and i didn’t want to bore everyone……
There is a contradiction between tension and relaxation with your muscles. As an example whiplash is a real problem from car accidents and in particular from the martial arts. Generally to better protect any joint you need to strengthen the muscles and maintain or improve your flexibility.
If you use a lot of force to stretch, it is likely that you will over extend the ligaments. If you go to far you can actually snap or damage them. Recovery from this is problematic and in some cases requires surgery as it compromises the stability of the joint. This in turn causes arthritis / excessive wear and tear.
You need a routine that gently twists the neck without going to extremes. The so called internal martial arts very much have stretching routines that deal with these problems, although usually you will find this in a Tai Chi class. The warm up had their roots in preventing whiplash injuries when you were thrown around. These days, they are mainly used to maintain flexibility and heal injuries, so well worth having a look at.
Most people will experience some degree of clicking when you move your neck in the manner you describe. It is normally caused by either excessive tension in the neck area or calcium deposits (calcification). Milk and diary foods aren’t very well handled by our bodies and frequently end up as deposits in your joints.
The clicking is rarely a problem, but may be a warning that you may need to have a look at your diet.
I have been debating for a long time whether to write a book on clicking joints and what to do about them. If there is enough interest I will put this together!
Thanks
Steve