Hands up if you’re guilty of cracking your own neck to release some ‘tension’ felt!
Although it may look or sound tempting (even more so during this circuit breaker period), you should never attempt to “crack” yourself, or let a non-professional do it for you. As much as we’d like to deny it, some of us are addicted to cracking our [insert body part name here]. However, those cracking sounds that you hear when you self-adjust are just releases of air pockets that does not correct the misalignment in your spine. Cracking your neck can be harmful if you don’t do it correctly and very often.
How about those chiropractic videos where you hear lots of cracking (and even labelling it ASMR…)?
When getting a chiropractic adjustment, you may hear a popping or cracking sound that may seem a bit strange. It is, in fact, completely harmless. This sound is caused by the release of gas from between the spinal segments that naturally occur in the spaces of the joints, and is no more significant than any other releases of gas from the body. This happens as chiropractors are increasing spinal mobility and alignment during the adjustment. An example would be cracking your knuckles, which most people would have done at least once in our life.
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Many associate the cracking sound with the release of tension and use it as a measure of how successful an adjustment was. However, the effectiveness of an adjustment does not depend on whether there is the cracking sound. The healing process continues after an adjustment, and not only during the instance where chiropractic adjustment happens.
Chiropractic is all about making sure the communication between your brain and body is flowing well, so that your body functions as it was designed to.
The daily activities that we do – whether it is working from home, exercising or watching Netflix can cause your spine to misalign. This misalignment then puts pressure on your nerves and interferes with your body’s overall function.
When this misalignment happens, you might notice a change in your posture, or even experience symptoms such as neck pain, back pain, achiness or general feelings of exhaustion.
Chiropractors are the only health profession that can correct these spinal misalignments. We do this by putting in a specific gentle force onto the spine, which is known as the chiropractic adjustment.
You should only seek professional help when trying to undergo spinal manipulation. You should NEVER attempt to adjust your own neck or back, or worse still, seek help from a non-professional in doing so. Your neck is home to many important blood vessels and nerves, and you may aggravate the pain or even strain your neck if you attempt to adjust it without professional guidance.
If you’ve been experiencing neck pain and haven’t been able to address it, let us help you.
