In general, caffeine makes me worse. Tea is easier on me than coffee, but I stay away from all of it ---- soda too.

yeah, i love my tea!
caffeine raises cortisol and when my cortisol is high my neck clenches up

it sucks tho because my brain works better. trade offs indeed

I'm the neck clench poster boy!

Unfortunately.

Studies have shown that people think better and faster after a brisk walk. Presumably due to increased circulation. Sugar helps too, though I would prefer whole fruit over liquid sources for better long term health.

Though it costs more time than downing a caffeinated drink, a combo of hydration, stretching, walking and fruit should charge the brain.

Ahem, not that I'm in the choir. I still drink 1 cup of tea per day even though I do some of the above.

Chroma and MsPLoafer, I wish I could trade necks with you for a day to give you some relief. The scalenectomy part of my surgery has helped me so incredibly much after living with neck pain for all these years. I know you both are hesitant about surgery--and rightly so--but I wish you could do a neck "test drive".

I had the surgery on the left side and still have tight muscles on the left side.

I realize I've been slacking on my mag supplementation and that during this time the muscle tension has been creeping up. So I'll be getting back on that to see how it goes.

Did you have full scalenectomy or just the rib resection? If not, have you thought about going back for the scalenectomy?

Had scalenectomy. I also had a labrum repaired in shoulder and cyst removed. My chiro who does ART on my thinks it might be coming from pec minor. Yesterday I saw him and he really worked that area. At one point when he was stretching and massaging area, I felt whole neck release.

I used to have major trigger points with pec minor and underarms. I used to have both active release, and graston techniques perforned which both helped. I feel that the neuromuscular technique my new therapeutic massage therapist uses is much more effective. Unfortunately, I have to pay $70 a session for her while the ART and graston were covered by my insurance.

My new physical therapist, Dr. Ando commented on how good my soft tissue person was because I am practically trigger point free now.

Sorry for the thread hijack.

I have to pay for both, so it really does not matter what I do. Yesterday when I had the ART the muscles where extremely tight. There are days when it is not so bad, which makes no sense to me, since I already had the surgery on that side. My right side which still has a lot of arterial compression does not have the tightness that the left side seems to always have.