As people age, day by day work, smartphones, and even pillows can appear to have it out for our necks. Unhealthy posture, repetitive motions, and even only one improper transfer involving this a part of the physique can set off tenderness, stress, and ache. In case you’re experiencing such sensations, you may say you’ve a knot in your neck. However is something really getting tangled up in there?
The brief reply is not any. “Muscular tissues are by no means tied into knots,” stated Ara Nazarian, who runs the musculoskeletal analysis lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Middle in Boston. But, “they will really feel that means because of the accumulation of tight muscle fibers inside a selected space.”
Nazarian, additionally a professor of orthopedic surgical procedure at Harvard Medical College, advised Well-liked Science that when neck knots—or myofascial set off factors—happen, “a selected portion of the muscle contracts equally.” In different phrases, what’s generally known as a knot is definitely an space of contracted muscle fibers that may’t absolutely chill out. This phenomenon, Nazarian defined, may really feel like a bump, lump, or band beneath your pores and skin.
In case you’re affected by a knot in your neck, you’re in good firm. Virtually everyone experiences delicate set off factors at one level or one other of their life. “Set off factors are current in 97% of people with continual ache, and they’re present in 100% of people experiencing neck ache,” Nazarian stated. For most individuals, they’re unimaginable to utterly keep away from, however muscle knots are treatable and it’s doable to cut back how usually they seem. Sometimes, the trick is in figuring out the widespread causes and making some changes.
Quite a lot of behaviors can foster muscle stress and result in knots, together with sitting for a very long time, gazing downward at your laptop computer, pill, or smartphone habitually, not consuming sufficient water, and falling asleep “in a clumsy place,” stated Nazarian. “Bodily trauma, resembling whiplash or a pulled muscle, heavy lifting, and even utilizing a non-standard pillow, can lead to muscle knots because the physique tries to guard the injured space by tightening surrounding muscle tissues,” he added.
[ Related: Lift heavy stuff without wrecking your back ]
Inversely, bettering your posture, taking frequent breaks, exercising usually, taking care when lifting one thing heavy, and managing stress with yoga or respiratory workout routines can mitigate knots. Nazarian additionally cited staying hydrated and ensuring “your weight loss program comprises a balanced mixture of magnesium, potassium, and calcium” as two different prevention methods.
In case you’re affected by a knot proper now, specialists usually advocate massages, stretches, a heat compress, over-the-counter medicine like ibuprofen, or dry needling. These strategies can velocity up the restoration course of by stress-free muscle tissues and boosting blood movement, which “supplies vitamins and oxygen to the broken tissue, enhancing restoration,” Zachary Gillen, a professor of train physiology at Mississippi State College, wrote in a 2022 essay.
“Normally inside every week or two a muscle knot will resolve by itself,” Gillen stated.
Nevertheless, if such methods don’t assist, or in case your ache is continual, Nazarian recommends contacting a healthcare skilled. “You also needs to seek the advice of a physician if the ache is extreme, lasts for quite a lot of days, or is accompanied by signs like numbness or dizziness or if any radicular pains radiate to the higher extremities,” he advised Well-liked Science.
Whereas muscle knots aren’t really knotted, the discomfort is actual and the flip of phrase endures. Because the mid-aughts, queries for neck and muscle “knots” on Google have trended upwards, dipping on the top of pandemic lockdowns, earlier than persevering with to climb. Generally, scientific precision is just no match for fashionable language.
This story is a part of Well-liked Science’s Ask Us Something collection, the place we reply your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the bizarre to the off-the-wall. Have one thing you’ve all the time needed to know? Ask us.