Newsletter 2 - Relieving Neck Stiffness / Michal Ron *

10^th September 2005

Shalom!

As I work with people I find & develop different short and simple exercises that can help and promote the well being of most of us.

After practicing those myself and teaching them to friends & clients I would like to share those with a wider range of people – so we can all benefit.

If you know any people who could benefit from Relieving Neck Stiffness, feel free to forward them this e-mail.

Relieving Neck Stiffness

After practicing for two week Relieving Stress & Tension from Aching Shoulders, you have probably found that your shoulders feel much better, but now you feel more the stiffness in your neck.

This is most expected, as both neck and shoulders belong to the same bodily area, and actually, we hardly ever move one without the others.

Stiff neck, like tension in the shoulders, is a very common non-pathological aches that can be relieved using bodywork, or practicing short and simple exercises like those described below.

And here is what you can do:

1. Sit down, with both your feet on the ground. You could also sit in Lotus of half lotus posture.

2. Close your eyes.

3. Release your jaw.

4. Pay attention to both your sitting bones. Feel them rested on the chair or the floor.

5. Pay attention to your back, neck, and shoulders. Examine your sitting posture with closed eyes. Where is the tension? What does your neck feel like?

6. Pay attention to your neck, so that you can notice the difference afterwards.

7. Although your neck is already stiff, try and make it a bit more stiff.

8. Reach the maximum stiffness you can in your neck, and keep it this way for a few seconds.

9. Don’t stop breathing while stiffening your neck.

10. After you feel you have reached the maximum stiffness in your neck, and kept it like this for 10-20 seconds, release the stiffness in your neck by stopping to do the effort.

Don’t move your neck or your head, just stop stiffening your neck.

11. Repeat this exercise a few times.

12. Pay attention to your neck, shoulders and sitting posture.

What is different?

This exercise goes against our natural tendency. We would usually try to relieve tension, and not make it worse. But having done this exercise, you have surely noticed its benefit.

It is like holding a feast half-closed for a long period of time. Keeping it so takes a lot of effort, and for the long run creates tension. By letting ourselves go the full course, by closing our feast to the fullest, and then releasing, we enable the movement to fulfill itself.

When the body learns how to go full way to one direction, it can rest, going all the way to the other direction, and release.

One Step Further, into Psychological Bodywork

According to psychological bodywork, by keeping our neck stiff we are actually keeping under our control different emotional matters.

For example, if you pay attention you would easily notice that whenever we are stopping ourselves from saying something – expressing anger, for example, we are creating tension and stiffness in our neck. As if the words we did not say remain in our muscles and create tension.

If you would like to help yourself release the stiffness in your neck some more you could venture into psychological bodywork, and ask yourself – what words did I want to say, and didn’t? Where did I stop my expression?

When you have found out the answer, you could sit and write down those un-spoken words – as another form of release. Note that it is not necessary that you share those words with others. The main point is for you to have expressed, in some way, those unexpressed feelings.

Another non-physical aspect that has to do with the neck is being stubborn, and insisting on things happening this way. Already in the Bible, when the prophets want to say ‘stubborn’ they usually use the term ‘hard neck’.

If you would like to go a step further, into psychological bodywork, you can stop a while and think – what am I being stubborn about?

I would be happy if you chose to write and tell me what came up after doing this short and simple exercise.

I would also be happy to hear what you found out about the connection between the stiffness in your neck and stubbornness or blocked expressions in your life.

If you would like to ask any further questions, about physical, emotional, mental or spiritual issues that can be discussed in the following newsletter, please do so!

If you would like to read more articles of mine, go to:

http://psychological-bodywork.blogspot.com/

All the best,

Michal Ron

Psychological Bodywork

San Francisco, CA

(415) 221-5582; (415) 810-5582

If you are new to this e-newsletter, and would like to receive it regularly, please write me to psychological_bodywork@yahoo.com and ask to join in.

Feel welcome to suggest a subject or ask questions that you find interesting.

Michal Ron has recently arrived to San Francisco from Israel, where she has earned her degrees in psychology, after which she attended an additional three years long study program of The Grinberg Method. This method uses bodywork in order to enable people to stop unwanted states and symptoms in their life.

For the last 7 years Michal has been working with individuals, couples and groups, helping people to spin their life upwards.

Michal has numerous interviews on the radio, television and newspapers, as well as many appearances on the net, where she is regularly publishing her articles.

To read more of my articles go to:

http://psychological-bodywork.blogspot.com/

If you would not like to receive any more of these bi-monthly newsletter, please e-mail me back with the title – ‘newsletter - unsubscribe’.

** Michal Ron has moved back to living in Tel-Aviv, Israel.
All the best!!!

Newsletter 1 - Relieving Stress & Tension from Shoulders / Michal Ron *

19^th August 2005

Shalom!

As I work with people I find and develop different short and simple exercises that I think could help and promote the well being of many of us.

After practicing those myself and teaching them to friends and clients I would like to share those with a you– so you can also benefit from them.

If you know any people who could benefit from Relieving Stress & Tension from Aching Shoulders, feel free to forward them this e-mail.

Relieving Stress & Tension from Aching Shoulders

Aching shoulders due to accumulated stress and tension is one the most common non-pathological ailments – those chronic and most common problems that make up most of our health problems, and that only alternative medicine can relieve.

Relieving that stress could be very easy, and does not need to consume more than a few minutes a day, especially if done regularly.

And here is what you can do:

1. Sit down, with both your feet on the ground. You could also sit in Lotus or half lotus posture.

2. Close your eyes.

3. Release your jaw.

4. Pay attention to both your sitting bones. Feel them rested on the chair or the floor.

5. Pay attention to your back, neck, and shoulders. Examine your sitting posture with closed eyes. Where is the tension?

6. Feel the tension in your shoulders for a few seconds.

7. Raise your shoulders up to your ears.

You can do that more or less strongly, i.e. – you can raise your shoulders most gently, or using a lot of force. See what feels better to you.

8. Leave shoulders at maximum height for a few seconds, and then drop them.

9. Don’t forget to breathe while holding your shoulders up.

10. Repeat a few times.

11. Pay attention to your shoulders and sitting posture. What is different?

Variations –

1. Instead of raising your shoulders to the maximum and then releasing, you could also go for a monotonous movement, lifting and relaxing your shoulders ca. 10 times slowly, and then stopping.

You could sample both options, see which of those you enjoy more, and practice your favorite.

2. To take the monotonous exercise one step further, you can combine it with breathing. You could either inhale while raising your shoulders, and exhale while letting go, or vice versa.

After a long day or a stressful incident, I count on this exercise to help me relax and come back to my senses fun & easy.

Devoting a few minutes daily to this exercise before going to sleep will only take a few days to start enhancing your sleeping, and can even totally solve chronic sleeping problems.

One Step Further, into Psychological Bodywork

· After finishing that short exercise, you could go one step further to enhance your well being, and observe, while sitting, what emotions come up.

Much too often we hold in our bodies feelings that we do not want to feel, and those accumulate and take the form of muscular tension. Once the tension is released, so do all of those feelings. If anything comes up – a memory, an emotion, pain in another area, or something else, just go on breathing and feel what you feel.

Don’t judge it, and don’t try to change it. Think of those emotions as tears that were held in the body in the form of tension, and now just want to be released.

· Another point to note, as we are working on our shoulders, is the connection of the tension there to taking too much responsibility, or not handling in a relaxed air responsibilities that we took upon ourselves.

Watch and see how this tension in the shoulders could be related to the issue of responsibility in your life.

What did you find out?

I will be more than happy if you write me and tell me what happened after practicing this short and simple exercise.

I would also be happy to hear what you found out about the connection between the tension in your shoulders and different issues in your life.

If you would like to ask any further questions, physical, emotional, mental or spiritual, I will be happy to discuss those in the following newsletters.

If you would like to read more of my articles, including a short articles with three such stress relieving techniques, go to:

http://psychological-bodywork.blogspot.com/

See you next time,

Michal Ron,

San Francisco.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

If you are new to this e-newsletter, and would like to receive it regularly, please write me to psychological_bodywork@yahoo.com and ask to join in.

Feel welcome to suggest a subject or ask questions that you find interesting.

If you would not like to receive any more of these bi-monthly newsletter, please e-mail me back with the title – ‘newsletter - unsubscribe’.

** Michal Ron has moved back to living in Tel-Aviv, Israel.
All the best!!!