You spend about 33% of your life sleeping. Are you sleeping with a good pillow? Using a cervical support neck pillow is important because it helps to align your head and neck for sleeping. This means better sleep, waking up pain free and having good posture while sleeping.

If you have neck pain (acute or chronic), have suffered from
a whiplash-type injury, wake up with a stiff neck or have poor neck posture, then ideally you should get a good cervical support neck pillow. A flat pillow is not going to cut it. Some pillows such as temperpedic neck pillows can end up costing a lot of money. Other orthopedic neck pillows made out of fiberfill, even buckwheat hulls can be a lot more cost effective and very comfortable for sleeping.

Below Source: Health and Quality of Life Outcomes 2010, 8:48 by Petri SaloArja HakkinenHannu Kautiainen Jari Ylinen

While neck strength training has been shown to be effective in improving neck muscle strength and reducing neck pain, “health-related quality of life” or “HRQoL” among patients with neck pain has been reported as an outcome in only two short-term exercise intervention studies.

Thus, reports on the influence of a long-term neck strength training intervention on HRQoL among patients with chronic neck pain have been not been completed. This study reports the effect of one-year neck strength training on HRQoL in females with chronic neck pain.

In this study, 180 female office workers, ages 25 to 53 with chronic neck pain were put into two groups:
• Group 1: a strength training group (STG) - this group performed high-intensity isometric neck strengthening exercises with an elastic band
• Group 2: endurance training group (ETG)- performed lighter dynamic neck muscle training
• Group 3: control group (CG)- received a single session of guidance on stretching exercises

Health-related quality of life was assessed using the generic 15D questionnaire at baseline and after 12 months.

The study found that training led to statistically significant improvement in the 15D total scores for both training groups (groups 1 and 2), whereas no changes occurred for the control . The STG improved significantly in five of 15 dimensions, while the ETG improved significantly in two dimensions.

Conclusions: One year of either strength or endurance training seemed to moderately enhance the Health related quality of life. Neck and upper body training can be recommended to improve health related quality of life of females with neck pain if they are motivated for long-term regular exercise.

It seems that the popularity of IHM is growing rapidly. The vast majority of my recent new clients have come for Indian Head Massage. Most of those new clients have been new to IHM, having never experienced it before.

My Google analytics page suggests that the most popular search or 'keywords' for the Red Raven website are: 'indian head massage', 'history of indian head massage', 'what is indian head massage'!

IHM is a very effective therapy and it is far more than just a 'head' massage. It focusses on the upper back, shoulders, arms, neck, head, ears and face. It's a great all round therapy and perfect for those people who hold tension in their shoulders, neck and jaw. During the therapy session, it is wonderful to see the positive visible impacts on my clients; tension releases, breathing slows, heart rate decreases and relaxation is achieved.

From March, a new special offer will be available; 'The Tuesday Treat', which will see all one hour Indian Head Massage treatments reduced from £25 to £15. That's an excellent saving of 40%!!