stiffnecked

My wonderful husband gave me a gift certificate to go to a spa for a massage for my birthday...back in March. I finally redeemed it a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed my first ever massage. That's definitely something a woman my age should have experienced by now! It was awesome...and then I was unbelievably sore for a few days afterward! Wow, how having an arm raking over those tight knots at the time can feel so good and then the next day feel so bad is a mystery to me.

Before she began, the masseuse asked if I had any areas I wanted her to concentrate on. I told her I am a stiff/achy neck person from a car accident I was in 3 years ago. She asked what type of pillow I sleep on. I told her that as a back sleeper, the chiropractor that worked on me after the accident said I should be sleeping on a memory foam pillow with the curve in it to support the curve in my neck as I sleep. I had already been using one of those pillows and have been for years. But with my really tight neck, the longer/better I sleep on any night, the more stiff and achy it is in the morning. She told me that as a back sleeper, ideally I should sleep with no pillow at all for proper alignment. WHAT?! So after she gloriously tortured the trigger points in my neck and showed me some stretches I should be doing, I decided that night I should try it. For the past couple of weeks, most nights I have slept nearly the whole night without a pillow and my neck is doing a LOT better. Now I can sleep for a long time and not wake up sore. It's amazing. Why did I wait so long to get my massage?! Why did I not ever think to try sleeping with no pillow? (PS if you are a side sleeper, you need a thick pillow to keep your spine aligned, she said.)

So that's my story. Get a massage. Work on those neck knots. Stretch neck. Toss pillow on ground. Wake up happy. New year, new neck.