Your neck (also known as your cervical spine) is a complicated system made up of muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, nerves, and stacked vertebrae (bones). A soft, rubbery cushion called a disc sits between each vertebra and helps you flex your neck while simultaneously acting as a shock absorber.

A stretched muscle or ligament, "pinched" nerve, or swollen joint, to mention a few, might cause neck discomfort as a result of injury or inflammation to any of these components in the spine. 

In this article, we have gathered six common causes of neck pain that you shouldn’t ignore.

1. Bad sleeping position
It's usual to feel stiffness or soreness in the shoulders, back, or neck as you wake up. People's sleeping positions, the number of pillows they use, and the stiffness of their mattresses may all have an impact on how they feel when they get up in the morning. If you fall asleep without adequate head support or with your neck out of alignment, you're more likely to wake up with a hurting neck.

2. Sprain or strain
A sprain of the ligaments that link the vertebrae in your neck is known as a neck sprain. A strained or torn muscle or tendon in your neck is known as a neck strain. These two forms of neck injuries have comparable symptoms and are treated in the same way.

Ligaments are tissue bands that link bone to bone, whereas tendons are tissue bands that connect muscle to bone. A neck strain or sprain is frequently caused by an abrupt neck movement, such as from a vehicle accident or a fall.

3. Poor posture
If you spend a lot of time slouching or hunching over a computer screen, it can cause a forward head position, putting additional strain on the neck that can make it achy. Text neck is caused by staring down at a phone or tablet for long periods of time. 

4. Torticollis
Torticollis is a condition that causes the head to bend to one side. Attempting to straighten one's head can be very uncomfortable. Torticollis doesn’t always have a known cause. This issue can be caused by mild ligament or muscle sprains in the neck, while prolonged exposure to cold temperatures might also be a factor.

Torticollis frequently develops overnight, meaning that a person has no symptoms when they go to bed but can't move their neck when they wake up. The pain will usually go away within a few days, and mobility will return to normal. Tumors, infections, and drug side effects are some of the possible underlying causes of torticollis.

5. Cervical degenerative disc disease
Over time, all discs lose moisture and their capacity to cushion the spine's vertebrae. This leads to the development of cervical degenerative disc disease. If a disc degenerates sufficiently, it can produce pain in a variety of ways for certain people, including a herniated disc, constricted nerve, or changes in the facet joints that can lead to osteoarthritis.

6. Whiplash
Whiplash is a type of neck injury caused by a movement event in which the head is flung first into hyperextension and subsequently forward into flexion. Car accidents are the most prevalent cause of whiplash, although sports injuries or falls are also a possibility. 

Whiplash injury is not a medical diagnostic, but rather an occurrence that can lead to a variety of diagnoses, the most common of which is a neck strain or sprain. Whiplash injuries can cause damage to joints or discs, which can irritate spinal nerve roots or, in rare cases, the spinal cord.