A Muscle With A Lot Of Therapeutic Value
First, a quick anatomy primer, so that the rest makes sense. We’re going to be talking about your sternocleidomastoid (SCM) muscle today.
To find it, there are two easy ways:
- look in a mirror, turn your head to one side and it’ll stick out on the opposite side of your neck
- look at this diagram 😉
(we’re going to talk about it in the singular, but you have one on each side)
This muscle is interesting for very many reasons, but what we’re going to focus on today is that massaging/stretching it (correctly!) can benefit several things that are right next to it and/or behind it, namely:
- The tenth cranial nerve
- The eleventh cranial nerve
- The carotid artery
Why do we care about these?
Well, we would die quickly without the first and last of those. However, more practically, massaging each has benefits:
The tenth cranial nerve
This one is also known by its superhero alter-ego name:
The Vagus Nerve (And How You Can Make Use Of It)
The eleventh cranial nerve
This one’s not nearly so critical to life, but it does facilitate most of the motor functions in that general part of the body—including some mechanics of speech production, and maintaining posture of the shoulders/neck/head (which in turn strongly affects presence/absence of certain kinds of headaches).
The carotid artery
We suspect you know what this one does already; it supplies the brain (and the rest of your head, for that matter) with oxygenated blood.
What is useful to know today, is that it can be massaged, via the SCM, in a way that brings about a gentler version of this “one weird trick” to cure a lot of kinds of headaches:
Curing Headaches At Home With Actual Science
How (And Why) To Massage Your SCM
…to relieve many kinds of headache, migraine, eye-ache, and tension or pain the jaw. It’s not a magical cure all so this comes with no promises, but it can and will help with a lot of things.
In few words: turn your ahead away from the side where it hurts (if both, just pick one and then repeat for the other side), and slightly downwards. When your SCM sticks out a bit on the other side, gently pinch and rub it, working from the bottom to the top.
If you prefer videos, here is a demonstration:
How (And Why) To Stretch Your SCM
The above already includes a little stretch, but you can stretch it in a way that specifically stimulates your vagus nerve (this is good for many things).
In few words: stand (or sit) up straight, and interlace your fingers together. Put your hands on the back of your neck, thumbs-downwards, and (keeping your face forward) look to one side with your eyes only, and hold that until you feel the urge to yawn (it’ll probably take between about 3 seconds and 30 seconds). Then repeat on the other side.
If you prefer videos, this one is a very slight variation of what we just described but works the same way:
Take care!
