These are 4 of my favourite exercises that I give to patients who suffer from neck pain and/or headaches. They are easy to do and can help a lot to relieve tension in the neck and shoulders, as well as reducing headaches.

Aside from low back pain, neck pain is the second most common presentation I see in the clinic. It’s almost becoming its own little epidemic at the moment with the way that we live our lives. Neck pain is frequently associated with headaches, but it can also just present on its own.

There are two main types of headaches that we as osteopaths can help with. The most common we see is called cervicogenic headaches, which means headaches being caused by or stemming from dysfunction in the neck (literally translating to ‘of cervical origin’). What this means is that the muscles surrounding the neck are generally tight, and the joints are usually stiff and lack range of movement.