Oct. 8 — First wrong guess
I woke up feeling dizzy and heavy-headed.
Years ago, when I wanted to avoid lying in bed too long, I used to sit up almost instantly after waking. Looking back, it must have looked ridiculous, stiff and mechanical. That kind of sudden movement would sometimes bring on visual sparkles and a floating, lightheaded feeling. Since then I’ve already become much slower when getting out of bed, but that morning the dizziness still came back. My first thought was that I had slept wrong and strained my neck, except my neck didn’t actually hurt.
After taking my child to school, I had originally planned to go out and walk about 2.5 km for exercise. But I felt off, so I skipped it.
I went home and rested for a while, sitting in a computer chair with head support. Only one window was open, and no air was blowing directly on me. After about half an hour, most of the symptoms were gone, so I went out and handled other things.
Later that night, I reached up to a high cabinet to grab some paper and the dizziness came back immediately. I tried lifting my head again and felt the same spinning sensation. It felt a lot like motion sickness. It was already past 11, so I washed up and went to bed.
Before sleeping, I looked up possible explanations on my phone. I came across several posts about massage, cupping, and cervical problems. None of them really convinced me. I’ve even bought a cupping set before and tried it once, then left it sitting around for years.
At that point I still didn’t accept those explanations. I hadn’t done any imaging, and as far as I knew, this was my first time dealing with anything that seemed related to the cervical spine.
Oct. 9 — Still the wrong guess
After a full night’s sleep, the dizziness was still there the next morning. That made me nervous. I was sweating from anxiety and felt generally unwell, so my wife took our child to school instead.
Part of the panic came from seeing an example of a 26-year-old fitness enthusiast with somewhat similar symptoms who ended up needing minimally invasive surgery because of a blockage. Expensive, time-consuming, serious. In my case I only had dizziness, and I still had normal control of all four limbs, so it didn’t seem that severe, but it was enough to make me think about worst-case scenarios.
So I started asking myself what had changed recently.
One change was that I had been gaming less. In theory, spending less time gaming should have helped, but in practice I had replaced some of that time with more web browsing. I didn’t think that was the whole reason, because gaming also keeps the body in a fixed position, sometimes with even more tension.
Then I watched a video from a creator on Bilibili about neck posture problems such as a straightened cervical curve, forward head posture, and related rehab exercises. After watching several of his videos, things finally clicked.
The biggest change in the past month was this: during my daily walks, I had developed a habit of looking down at my phone for check-ins, sometimes for roughly half an hour while walking. And that wasn’t all. When I went to pick up my child from school, I had stopped using an electric scooter and started walking instead—while again looking down at my phone.
I had thought I was being clever, saving time and doing two things at once. In reality, it now looked like a very stupid tradeoff.
Once I felt I had identified the cause, my anxiety dropped sharply. It felt like understanding the problem fixed half of it immediately.
I also asked a friend who had dealt with a stiff neck before. He had gone to the hospital and had imaging done twice. According to him, the doctor basically told him there was nothing serious going on and that he should go home and rest.
So I started following some of the rehab ideas from those posture and neck-training videos. I don’t remember every method, but using several of them together seemed reasonable. More importantly, I needed to stop the habits that were likely causing the problem in the first place.
For people who spend a lot of time on computers and phones, especially while also sitting in air conditioning or cold airflow, neck relaxation matters. Standing on one leg for 30 seconds, standing against a wall for a minute with the body aligned, and moving the arms in a W-shaped pattern are all simple drills I already knew but hadn’t been taking seriously. They’re basic, but they do help as prevention.
The bigger point is obvious: try not to keep your head bent down toward a phone or tablet for long stretches. Even when reading or using a phone while lying down, distance and angle still matter.
One useful thing about sharing knowledge is that sometimes you can solve a large part of a problem without spending money. From another angle, some functions people used to rely on hospitals for may increasingly be partially replaced by widely available educational content.
Oct. 10 — Symptoms improve, and a more specific clue appears
By the next morning, the symptoms had eased noticeably.
The day before, I had stopped walking while staring at my phone. I tried to keep my eyes facing forward, chest open, and head up. Whenever I had time, I lay down or rested my head against something so my neck wouldn’t bear as much strain. My intention was simple: let the cervical area calm down.
I didn’t rush to write anything at first because I wanted to see whether the changes were actually working.
I also practiced some of the exercises from the day before and massaged my neck, the shoulder area, and the back of my head. When I pressed on the back-left side of my head, it felt sore. That made me search specifically for pain on pressure at the back of the head.
One explanation I found was straightforward: tenderness there can be associated with muscle tension headaches, often related to sleep deprivation, long periods of looking down at a phone, or prolonged desk work. Another possibility mentioned was a local skin issue such as folliculitis or another skin condition.
From there I looked up recovery methods, especially options that didn’t involve medication unless necessary. I found more exercise-based and anatomy-focused videos about pain in the back of the head and about training the suboccipital muscles.
One thing I noticed is that educational video platforms now tend to push creators with stronger credentials toward the top. Quite a few younger doctors, including people working in major hospitals, are also putting out videos explaining diagnosis and treatment processes more openly.
After massaging, the tenderness became symmetrical on both sides rather than only on the left, but overall the dizziness was lighter. I was pleasantly surprised, because it really felt like I was getting closer to the actual source.
I asked that same friend again. He told me his discomfort had also been in the back of the head. After two CT scans, nothing significant was found. He had even told the doctor that cool air from the AC made it feel a bit better, and the doctor apparently thought he was being difficult. The result was still the same: nothing abnormal on the scan, go home and rest, no need for more imaging, no prescription given. That surprised me.
Oct. 11 — Focusing on the suboccipital muscles
I woke up feeling normal that morning.
My own conclusion was that reduced mental stress was a big part of the improvement. Once I had a probable explanation and a practical direction for fixing it, I felt about 80% better.
The real pain point, in my case, seemed to be the suboccipital muscle group—the small muscles at the base of the skull. Once I started paying attention to that area, a lot of things made more sense. These short muscles are closely involved in fine control and sensitivity, unlike large power muscles such as the trapezius or the major muscles of the legs. The area is also tied into head position, eye movement, nearby muscle coordination, and its relationship with the upper spine.
That changed how I thought about the problem. In business people talk all the time about “pain points,” but here the phrase became literal. Once you find the actual painful structure, the whole situation becomes easier to understand.
I still have a habit of searching for answers online, but this time the search terms mattered a lot. When I searched using a more specific phrase related to the suboccipital muscles and recovery methods, the advice I found was far more useful and much less gimmicky.
That also taught me something about search in general: if you search with vague, nontechnical language, you’re more likely to get shallow or misleading recommendations. If your terms are more precise, lower-quality content has less room to fool you.
Oct. 12 — Not fully recovered, but clearly improving
At around 3 a.m. I got up to brush my teeth. Sometimes I tell my child a bedtime story and end up falling asleep too, so my own routine gets delayed.
By this point I was no longer feeling so foggy or dizzy, which was a relief. But pressing on the suboccipital area was still painful, so I knew I wasn’t fully recovered. The information I found suggested a quicker recovery might take one to two weeks, while slower cases might take around a month.
So for now, I just keep working on the area when appropriate and trying to restore normal movement and reduce tension. My impression is that muscular tightness there may also affect how comfortable circulation feels in the area, though the main lesson for me is still posture and sustained positioning.
I also came across a consultation video involving a man in his twenties whose symptoms were linked to the same kind of habits: looking down at a phone, gaming for long periods, or spending too much time fixed on a computer screen.
That, more than anything, seems to be the core problem: staying locked in one posture for too long. Once the body gets stuck in a fixed position, it becomes a warning sign. The solution is not mysterious—change posture often, interrupt static positions, and reduce strain before it turns into pain.
Otherwise, you end up spending extra time learning how to recover from something that could have been prevented in the first place.