By, Marcia Fayt, Back Pain Specialist, Yoga Teacher

For many carrying the right bag to hold everything from a laptop to workout gear is a big part of ensuring a smooth and fulfilling day. However, it is important to remember that it is essential to do stretches and exercises that release all the pent up tension in your neck, shoulders and upper back muscles caused by the amount of weight we carry around with us in our bags. Releasing this tension not only allows us to be pain free, but can also lead to increased energy and vitality during those busy days.

The muscles in our neck and shoulders have a very important jobs to do – they hold our head up and also protect our ‘brain stem’ and spinal nerves that run down our arms.  When the muscles around this vital area become tight and strained, nature will go to work protecting them, thus resulting in muscle spasms.  These spasms can cause many symptoms, which are all designed to let us know that we need to lighten the heavy loads around our neck and shoulder muscles and take care of them!  Symptoms can often appear in the form of tension headaches, tingling or numbness down the arms, fatigue and sometimes even dizziness.  Don’t ignore these symptoms, because they will not magically go away. They can create long-term issues such as degenerative disease and a herniated or bulging disc in our neck, to name a few.  Pain is nature’s way of asking for help.

So, what is the healthy way to carry our bags? I recommend using your arm strength to carry heavier bags, and to take the heavy weight off of the neck and shoulder muscles. The forearm muscles, bicep and triceps are designed to carry heavy objects.

Tips to help you lighten the load on your neck and shoulders:

• Carry a lighter load in the bag slung across the body or over the shoulder.
• If you need to carry a heavier load, it is best carried in a hand bag. 
• Carry a collapsible bag with you.   They can be found at many stores.  They can compress into a little ball, but when opened up they are sturdy. 
• Use bags on wheels with a handle to pull heavy loads.

For additional exercises and stretches designed for releasing tension in the neck and shoulders I recommend doing the ‘Upper Body’ yoga routine from my DVD.

 If you find that you continue to suffer from neck, shoulder and back pain I offer personalized sessions at Medcan that include acupressure massage. Put these tools to work, because they are important for releasing tension from our muscles allowing them to relax and regenerate, so they no longer compress your nerves.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at: marciafayt@medcan.com