Ways to try to alleviate pain:

• Visit your Chiropractor (a musculoskeletal specialist) to assure all joints in your spine are moving properly. Lack of movement can lead to loss of nutrition to the disk structure, which could lead to early degeneration.
• Keep your head in a neutral posture when reading or at a computer to decrease muscle strain. Do this by propping your book up or using a device to do so.
• Get up and move around after sitting for twenty minutes.
• Carry your head when walking so that when looking at yourself from the side, your ear is directly above your shoulder. This will decrease the stress on your muscles, ligaments, disks and joints in your neck.
• Strengthen the muscles in your neck with slight resistance with your hand on your head in all directions. This will increase the support of the bony structures in your neck, ultimately enhancing the stability.
• Sleep on your side or back but never on your stomach! This causes incredible undue stress on the structures in your neck.
• If you like to sleep on your side, obtain a pillow that is the same thickness as the distance between your ear and the outside portion of your shoulder (so that your head is in a neutral position when sleeping)
• If you sleep on your back, obtain a pillow that enhances the cervical lordosis, or neck curve; it should have a dip in the middle of the pillow for your head and a supporting area for the neck.