Yes, I did a few rounds of ART. It helped bring down my muscle tension some, but not enough. I also found it very painful during the sessions, although not so much after a day.

I stopped the ART after I plateaued with it. I wasn't sorry I did it at the time as it helped some, but in retrospect there are better approaches that are less painful. I have gotten better results with other soft tissue techniques that my current PT employs. These include:

-- osteopathic manipulation technique (OMT)
-- craniosacral therapy
-- joint mobilization

All done by the same person. I also have a chiro who does myofacial release on my neck muscles. That was helpful too.

But if you don't have someone on your health team that knows that stuff then you'll probably want to continue with ART some more. You can also ask your practitioner to ease up on some spots.

I tried massage, but for me at least, the results were too temporary to be worthwhile.

Ultimately I did need a muscle relaxant to help me through this. I still take it (diazepam 2mg, 2 X per day). I was originally on 5mg per day, now 4. I hope to reduce every 6 - 8 weeks or so until it's 0.

Another thing that helps is that when I wake in the morning, I scan my body for tension, especially my neck and shoulders, and let it go, usually counting out 10 breaths. It's a daily habit. I also check at night as I'm going to sleep. And when I'm at my desk. And when I watch TV.

I also started supplementing magnesium (you can find other threads) and quit caffeine (gradually over 4 weeks). I found both were helpful, but at least for the mag, it can take a month or more to see results.

Muscle tension has been a real problem for me and although I've improved a lot, I have not completely solved it. I still get problems with my neck (though not nearly as severe as before) and when I check for tension, I find I'm tensing too often (though not as much as before).

My guess is that you will have to work on this on-going like I have in order to get marked improvement.

Next in my queue is to learn Somatics by Thomas Hanna.

HTH