Could a simple breathing exercise help your neck pain, headaches, or TMJ?

You might be surprised that a simple no cost breathing exercise helped sufferers of neck pain, migraines, tension headaches, cervicogenic (neck originated headaches), and TMJ (temporomandibular joint aka your jaw joint) both lower pain scores and also disability according to a recent study in the Journal of Clinical Medicine. So, how might breathing exercises help with neck pain, headaches or jaw pain? 

In short, they found

➡️ When dealing with chronic pain, muscles other than your diaphragm(your accessory breathing muscles) are overactive causing those muscles to be stressed out, tender, and tend to round your spine forward(think teenager posture). 

➡️ This tension further pulls your head forward, places stress on your jaw which then causes tight tender knots to the muscles in the cheeks, forehead, and temples

➡️ In addition, this tension causes the muscles across the back of your head that squeeze the nerve that causes headaches(especially the type that go up and over the back of your head). 

➡️ This causes the muscles in the back of your neck to become stretched and weak causing more pain in the neck and upper back(think those knots between your shoulder blades). 

➡️ Lastly, this breathing dysfunction has been associated with increased inflammation contributing to further sensitizing and chronic pain. 

So, what are the breathing exercises that got the best results? 

✅ Exercises that focused on the diaphragm(belly breathing)

➡️Reduced tension in neck from secondary breathing muscles being overactive

➡️This reduced tension improved neck and upper back mobility reducing pain

➡️Stimulated the vagus nerve improving relaxation, reducing sympathetic nervous system tone(fight or   

                 flight response) and reducing inflammation

✅ Resisted breathing(balloon breathing or with breathing trainer)

➡️ Same benefits as belly breathing but with improved lung function

Belly breathing for beginners: The best place to start to learn how to do belly breathing/diaphragmatic breathing is lying on your back. Its called belly breathing because you want to pull air towards your belly so when you breathe in, your stomach should pooch out. Many people suck their gut in when they breathe and this is the opposite of what they should be doing. Try starting with 2 seconds inhale, slight hold, then 4 seconds slow release out.  Try to stretch this out to 4 seconds in, slight hold then 8 seconds slow release(you should not be blowing, just letting your breath leak out without pressing). 

Confused about where to start? Book a call from the comfort of your home or office and  on your schedule with one of our Headache, Neck, and TMJ Pain Specialists. You can schedule your call here.  Need help now? Come by and talk with one of our Doctors of Physical Therapy at no charge. We offer FREE consultations, which give you the opportunity to come in and meet us and see for yourself how we can help you.

Here are just a few of the things you will learn in one of our free consultation:

• What is the underlying cause of your pain? (hopefully nothing too serious!)

• Roughly, how long will it take to fix the problem?

• What to do to help – which doesn’t include painkillers, resting or surgery etc.

• What other, natural, drug free methods are there to speed up recovery alongside treatment?

Our consultations are great for anyone that may be “unsure” if physio is right for them, and they give you the opportunity to ask questions and see for yourself if we can help you.

If you’d like one of our limited free consultation sessions, please click here to schedule your free consultation or CALL us on 850-765-2779 to make a no-obligation enquiry.

About the Author

Dr. Brandon is the owner and a Physio at Body Mechanix Physiotherapy and Fitness. Four of his favorite people call him daddy while he's been married to his other favorite person for 23 years. He enjoys teaching martial arts and is a Mestrando in Capoeira while in the mornings, he can be found working out with the guys in F3 around town.  He's the author of 4 pain relief guides for sciatica, low back, shoulder, and knees and the lead contributor to the Active Tallahassee Blog.