The sternocleidomastoid muscle (SCM) is located behind the ear and runs along the side of the neck. The function of the muscle is to turn the head and to keep it stable during movements. If your posture is poor or you often do heavy lifting or you have been involved in a fall or whiplash, odds are you have trigger points here. Chronic trigger points in the SCMs are directly to blame for headaches, ear pain, and balance problems. Pain in this muscle can create jaw pain, as well as tightness and eventual misalignment of the temporomandibular joints in the jaw, a very debilitating and confusing condition (TMJ Disorder). The SCM can create a neck stiffness that keeps your head tilted to one side. You can relieve these painful symptoms yourself in the simplest way.

To treat this muscle, take all of the soft tissue between your fingers and thumb and knead with the opposite hand. It feels like a muscular rope in between your fingers. Relax your head and neck as you practice squeezing from the top of the muscle to the bottom and back up several times. Feel around for any tight or painful areas and squeeze for 30 seconds or so when you find a trigger point, then move along throughout the muscle.

The muscle hurts when squeezed, but you can’t do this muscle any harm. Your symptoms are likely to disappear after you have massaged the muscle regularly over several days. A single session can be a minute or two and done several times a day until it no longer hurts. Try to keep the pressure at a level of 7 or 8 on a scale of 1 to 10, where the number 1 is no pain and 10 is very painful.

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