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Yoga and Your Spine: Supporting Flexibility Through Upper Cervical Care

10/6/2025

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Yoga and Your Spine: Supporting Flexibility Through Upper Cervical Care
Yoga is often celebrated for its benefits to flexibility, balance, and mindfulness. But whether you're flowing through a vinyasa sequence or holding a gentle restorative pose, your spine is the quiet hero behind every movement. What many yoga enthusiasts don’t realize is how critical the upper cervical spine—the topmost region of the neck—is to spinal health and overall mobility. When this area is properly aligned, your entire practice can become more fluid, balanced, and beneficial.

At Healthy Living Spinal Care in Chelsea, MI, Dr. Joey Miles has seen firsthand how upper cervical chiropractic care enhances the yoga experience—not just by reducing discomfort, but by deepening spinal awareness and supporting long-term flexibility.
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The Spine’s Central Role in Yoga


The spine is the literal and energetic axis of the body in yoga. From simple poses like
Tadasana (Mountain Pose) to advanced backbends like Urdhva Dhanurasana (Wheel Pose), your spinal alignment affects your form, breath control, and stability. A misalignment—particularly in the upper cervical region—can restrict range of motion, impact posture, and even affect balance and breathing patterns.

The upper cervical spine, which includes the atlas (C1) and axis (C2), supports the weight of the head and plays a key role in connecting the nervous system to the rest of the body. When these vertebrae are out of alignment, it can cause muscular tension, headaches, dizziness, and disruptions in how the body moves and responds—all of which can interrupt your yoga flow.
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Signs of Upper Cervical Misalignment in Yogis


While yoga promotes alignment, it’s also a physical discipline that can stress the neck and spine—especially if poses are repeated without proper posture or awareness. Here are a few signs that your upper cervical spine might need attention:

  • Difficulty balancing in standing or inversion poses
  • Chronic tension in the shoulders or upper back
  • Headaches during or after practice
  • Fatigue or dizziness with deep breathing or backbends
  • Limited neck mobility in seated twists or prone poses

Even subtle imbalances in the upper cervical area can ripple through your spine and limit your progress on the mat.
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How Upper Cervical Chiropractic Complements Your Practice

How Upper Cervical Chiropractic Complements Your Practice

Upper cervical chiropractic care doesn’t “crack” your back in the way people often imagine traditional chiropractic does. Instead, it focuses on gentle, precise corrections to the top of the spine—targeting the relationship between the skull and the first two vertebrae. This region has a direct influence on posture, coordination, and the body’s ability to adapt to movement.

For yoga practitioners, receiving upper cervical care may offer benefits such as:

  • Improved balance and proprioception, enhancing stability in poses
  • Better neck range of motion for twists and backbends
  • Reduced tension in the traps, shoulders, and base of the skull
  • Increased breathing efficiency, especially in pranayama exercises
  • Enhanced spinal awareness, making alignment-based cues easier to implement

Dr. Miles customizes care to support the needs of active individuals, including yogis of all experience levels. By addressing the upper cervical spine, he helps restore the body’s natural alignment and allows the rest of the spine to function more freely.
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Creating a Synergistic Routine


Upper cervical care and yoga can work beautifully together, especially when paired mindfully. To get the most out of both, consider:
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  • Starting slowly after adjustments: Let your body adapt before diving into intense postures.
  • Prioritizing alignment cues: After a correction, your postural awareness may improve—notice the difference in how you hold your spine during poses.
  • Staying hydrated and rested: Supporting your nervous system ensures your body can respond to chiropractic care and yoga with greater ease.
  • Incorporating gentle, restorative poses after adjustments to support relaxation and integration.

If you're working with a yoga instructor, consider letting them know about your upper cervical care so they can offer cues that reinforce your alignment.
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Rooted in Alignment, Growing in Practice


Yoga isn’t just about touching your toes—it’s about discovering where your body is now and how it can evolve through awareness and balance. Likewise, upper cervical care isn’t about treating one symptom—it’s about enhancing your body’s ability to move, feel, and function as it was meant to.
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If you're in the Chelsea or Ann Arbor area and feel like something in your practice isn’t quite flowing, Healthy Living Spinal Care can help. Dr. Joey Miles specializes in supportive, individualized care that helps yogis feel grounded and aligned, both on and off the mat.
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How To Manage A Pinched Nerve With A Chiropractor for Migraines In Hickory

Neck pain in Hickory, or soreness in other parts of your body, can come from a variety of different sources. These range from arthritis to tendonitis to torn cartilages in your joints. This also doesn’t include the variety of other conditions that have back pain in Hickory as a common symptom. One common such example is getting a pinched nerve in the upper part of the spine, also known as cervical radiculopathy. This generally occurs when bone spurs start to appear around the discs in the spine. When everything is working well, the discs should absorb the shocks between each individual vertebra. A bone spur is a small bit of bone that is formed as we age and discs get weaker. When things go properly, bone spurs support the vertebrae as they get weaker, However, in some cases, those spurs press on nerve roots, leading to other symptoms.
 
Symptoms of Pinched Nerves
How do you tell that the soreness you are dealing with stems from a pinched nerve? No matter what area it’s in, you’re going to need to have an in-depth exam of the affected area to be absolutely certain. As an example, a pinched nerve is generally localized in one area. Another thing to note is that these are normally very sharp soreness. By comparison, if you simply overexerted a muscle, the sensation would likely be a duller strain. In some cases, a pinch may never have any other symptoms. Some people feel a sensation of pins and needles in a certain area. Others may feel numbness or weakness when trying to lift something.
 
Depending on where you feel your symptoms and the exact nature of them, your medical professional may be able to determine if it is a pinched nerve or not quite quickly. Generally, though, an exam will still be administered. These start by testing sensitivity, strength, and reflexes. You may be told to do different stretches and movements to determine what leads to symptoms and what relieves them. You’ll also likely need to provide details about your pain. For example, be sure to have a record of when the pain started, and any activities that you do that cause soreness to flare up. If it is soothed by certain activities, be sure to mention those as well. Your doctor might also ask if you have had other health changes or recently increased your physical activities. If the spinal nerves are impacted, they can manifest in surprising ways, like bladder and bowel issues.
 
Say that your standard exam isn’t enough to get to the root of these issues. Your doctor may instead decide to do imaging tests to figure out what’s causing the pinched nerve and where it is. This is mostly administered through X-rays or MRI scans. An X-ray can showcase details going on with your bones, but won’t show your discs and nerves. With this said, they can be useful for determining if you have narrow vertebrae or bone spurs. An MRI is able to do more, showing how healthy your nerves and discs are in detail. In some cases, an X-ray may be done to a certain area to check for bone injury. Lastly, if the issue is due to injured ligaments or tendons, an ultrasound may be needed.
 
Working With Your Fibromyalgia Chiropractor In Hickory
So, if you suspect that a pinched nerve is behind your soreness, or know it for a fact, what can you do? One asset that you have is doing a posture adjustment. To start, try and find a position that helps you feel comfortable with your soreness. After this, you can adapt your lifestyle and living spaces to help you stay in that posture as much as possible. For a lot of people, doing this in the workplace is a major source of problems. One way to get around this is by using a standing workplace. These help prevent pinched nerves, treat existing ones, and just lower overall soreness. You can either ask the HR department to modify your existing space or buy your own.
 
Another thing to note is that whenever you are dealing with a pinched nerve, you want to make sure that you are as rested as possible, along with lowering any activity that leads to soreness. Try and keep the cycle of rest going until your symptoms subside. After this, you can begin to start testing things together. For certain types of issues, like carpal tunnel syndrome, you may be able to use a splint to protect your wrist.
 
You have a lot of options that you can do at home to help lower soreness from pinched nerves. For example, a gentle stretch can help provide relief, but you don’t want to overextend yourself. Focus on smaller movements, and if you find yourself getting sore again, try and do something less intensive. Think about applying heat to your muscles in the affected area to help them loosen. Heat also supports healing by promoting blood flow. Generally, you want to apply it for 10-15 minutes at a time. You can also do ice instead if you prefer. Simply get some ice, wrap it in a washcloth, and apply it to the area for 10-15 minutes as well.
 
If you want additional help, consider looking into NSAIDs. These can help quite a bit with mild soreness and can be brought over the counter. With that said, just make sure that you read and stick to the recommended dosage. These aren’t going to be able to provide total coverage as well. If you find that you’re dealing with consistent, extreme, or repeated soreness, reach out to a medical professional. On top of performing the exams before, they may be able to provide a prescription for more powerful medication. They may also recommend a specialist like a chiropractor in Hickory. This will help you get the treatment you need.

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