Getting Rid of Morning Neck and Back Muscle Stiffness in One Day

Waking up one day with stiff left neck and left upper back muscles I couldn’t almost move to turn my head to one side and move my left arm at certain points. Doing so caused me much pain and discomfort on my back and neck. As a result, the neck and arm on the affected side were rendered limited in mobility. There’s no doubt, both were the cause of my sleeping and positioning to my left side almost all night. I spent half the following day guarding my every neck and arm movement.

It was one long, 4-day holiday-weekend at the time and being burdened with such an unfortunate state of mobility at the middle of the holidays is a sorry state. So I got myself in a “fighting mood” the other half of that day. I thought I just couldn’t let the pain and stiffness spoil the remaining days.





First, I started to repeatedly move my arms and neck slowly on and away from the affected side acquainting myself with the pain and discomforts. When I did start to tolerate them I proceeded to exercise them within range of motion every now and then. For once, I had the muscles massaged by a cousin with the application of efficascent (liniment) oil. I even had a home vacuumed-glass application (similar to cupping therapy) to the area for a few minutes. However, going into the night I was still annoyed and frustrated with the persistent discomforts, though, a little bit improving.

Unsatisfied and out of desperation I had to force-stretch the muscle areas affected several times which I noticed some amount of relief. I had them stretched to their limits repeatedly resting only for a few minutes then back again. After dinner, I went back to my stretching exercises and finally before going to sleep for the night, still with the symptoms in restricted and guarded sleeping positions.

The following day, I woke up to my astonishment that everything was very much different and seemed back to normal with very minimal, totally tolerable pain and discomfort. I considered that the collective interventions I employed the previous day did work and that the result was not immediately in effect at that time. Although, I think the stretching exercises impacted the most benefit. Had I not faithfully administered those self-care interventions I would have to wait three to four days for the unwanted pain and discomforts of stiffness to subside on their own without any medication.