Neck pain-women suffer more than men

Neck pain-women suffer more than men

An Australian study has found that women are 3 times more likely to suffer from neck pain than men!

As you may know, I have been writing article after article on neck pain, their causes, how to help your pain, exercises to do and ergonomics at the workplace and at home. However, I had not realized this fact that women suffer neck pain more than men. At the University of Sydney, Dr Julia hush of the back pain research group has reported her findings in the European spine journal.

Dr Hush reports that between 15 to 44% of people suffer from neck pain in any one year and that people who work in offices are at higher risk than any other groups. This I can assure you is from poor postural habits at their desks and computers and not taking adequate breaks away from the desk and not doing stretches.

She kept a close eye on 53 office workers at the university of Sydney for a whole year to get a better understanding of who suffered from neck pain and why. The office workers were asked to fill out questionnaires for her.

According to Dr Hush, almost 50% of these people who had no neck pain at the start developed an episode of neck pain over a period of one year. Most of these people were better within a 2 week period although others were in pain for much longer and some had to take time off work.

Some interesting observations found that women were 3 times more likely to suffer neck pain than their male counterparts and those who suffered from high levels of personal stress were over one and a half times more likely to suffer from neck pain than others.

The researchers found that those who exercised just three times or more were less likely to suffer from neck pain.

“The incidence of neck pain is very high,” says Hush.

So, please take note! If you are a woman under high psychological stress loads, work in an office and do not do any exercises or stretches you are looking for a head on collision with neck pain (that is of course if you don’t already have it).

But here is the good news; the majority of neck pain as I have written about before is from poor posture. If you are in pain, please read ‘why does my neck hurt?’ to understand what’s happening and how to fix it. Also read ‘the neck pain exercises’ to help counter balance all of the looking down and forward head bending that we tend to have to do during our day. Make sure your computer screen is up nice and high so you are not looking down into it, get your chair closer to your desk, bring your car seat forward so that you do not drive with your head in the forward ‘chin jutting’ position and you will be much better off. Get some massage to ease your stress levels and take regular breaks away from the computer.

related links

The major cause of Neck Pain
stretches for stiff necks

Stretching- Here is one of the worst to do

Which exercises should you do for a pinched nerve

The stretch you should not do for Neck and Shoulder pain

The Best pillows-What the Studies Say