Is cracking your neck bad?

Question

excuse me if i put this in the wrong section,

i'm not too sure where to ask this.

i have a habit.

i wake up, and crack my neck.

i go through the whole day doing so, about 20 different times a day!

will it cause serious harm?

(i crack my fingers, toes, knees, back, arms... but i just need to know about my neck)

Answer 1

i do the same thing! my dad told me that if i keep doing it my neck will be really stiff though

Answer 2

I always wanted to know that. I think it is bad. I crack everything else on my body and they ache when I don't. It can't be good.

Answer 3

When you "crack" your neck you're adjusting the alignment of your vertebra's.  Bad alignment in your neck can cause pain as it can pinch nerves and it can also do a bit of other weird stuff.

A good example is once when I was learning how to do a certain trick off the wall (the trick isn't the point here, the result is) I landed on my face... Just flat out.  Well, it threw my neck out of alignment pretty bad.  Bad enough to where it was plainly obvious in an X-ray. As a result my neck hurt (Obviously) and I couldn't feel things as well in my left arm.  It wasn't to a huge difference, but I could tell.  

After weeks of chiropractic adjustments my neck is now fine and I don't have the problem in my arms anymore.

The point here is if you adjust your neck wrongly you can do bad things to your body. If you do it right you can improve it.  The problem with doing this yourself is it's practically impossible to adjust your own neck / back - whatever - the way that it needs to be adjusted to be put in perfect / better alignment. It's best to leave these adjustments to a trained professional like a chiropractor.

As an added note: The sound that comes from adjusting your bones is actually a small explosion of pent up gas in your joint. It's not your bones grinding against each other or anything.  

Answer 4

If you are a chronic neck-popper, you are very likely stretching the ligaments which support and stabilize your neck joints. Stretched ligaments result in a condition called hypermobility in which the joints lose their natural springy end play. To someone skilled at feeling joint motion, like a chiropractor, this loss of springiness can be detected. It is sometimes jokingly referred to as “floppy disc syndrome,” although the discs in the neck are not directly affected. As the ligaments become more lax, the small muscles that connect one vertebra to the next become tight. They have to work harder to make up for the loss of stability due to the lax ligaments. This makes your neck feel tight. As the muscle tension builds and your neck becomes more and more uncomfortable, you feel the urge to manipulate your neck. CRACK! The muscles are stretched, they relax, and you feel some relief. Of course, this manipulation also stretched those already loose ligaments, and the vicious cycle starts over again.

I crack my neck too. I always thought it can't be good for me.