Raise your hands if you are checking this post out on your phone. I know most of you’ll are. Except for those who are at work, and sneaking to facebook to, you know, keep yourself updated. Well Jokes apart. I would like you to freeze in that very moment. Right now! there! freeze! Try to feel how your neck and shoulders are aligned. The way you are looking at the phone or your computer/tablet. Try to get a feel of your upper back and your lower back. Lets not forget our pelvis and hips. Do you feel you are sitting something like this? Take a look and correct yourself with the cues below.
I am sure you are and you know it. And sometimes it is difficult to realize this, you can ask someone to click a side view picture of you using your mobile phone or your laptop. Don’t cheat there. Sit the way you usually do.
The condition and pain in the neck due to chronic overuse of cell phones is called text neck. Its one of the ailments of the technologically advance world.
Everytime you bend your head downwards to look at your phone or forwards to look at your laptop you are increasing the weight of your head. Your muscles have to work at the end of their range and harder. Imagine having to stand the entire day on one foot. Difficult ain’t it? That is something what your muscles go through working at their maximum capacity through out the day to keep your head from falling off.
These muscles working at the end of capacity give way resulting into spasms and overtime chronic neck pain and deformities. The hunch back, we saw due to old age now is very common in young adults and even children. Overuse of technology forces our bodies to grow old before time.
What can we do to prevent it.
1.Lines: It is important to maintain lines. Our ears, shoulders and pelvic should be in a straight lines. Even slight deviation as in using a phone leads to increased stresses on the neck and could result in Neck Injury and bad posture.
2. Unwind
After slouching for hours, it is necessary to give some breathing space to your body and help it unwind.Here are a few ways.
Stand Against the wall with the back of your neck touching the wall. Elongate your neck and lift your arms to the wall as shown in the picture. Try to have your elbows and the back of your hand against the wall. You should feel a good stretch in the front of your chest.
Another stretch that is helpful is the doorway stretch. Stand at any doorway like shown in the picture. Rest your elbows at a comfortable height on the door frame. Lean forward with your chest. you should feel a stretch in front of your chest and shoulders Hold for 30 seconds repeat 3 times. Remember to look straight ahead and not down.
3. Correct Posture
- Change the way you hold your device rather than your posture. Have the screen at your eye level so your neck can remain straight.
- Keep a time lock on your phone. Every 10 minutes, you get a notification to stop using your phone.
- Moreover, every time you pick your phone up. Remember this as a cue to correct your posture.
With the advent of larger phones like Note 4( which I use), Iphone 6 plus and the likes, it is not surprising that many of us have been having thumb and finger pain and arthritis. The larger phones cause the thumb and fingers to work at their end ranges, overstretched and at mechanical insufficiency. This is not just when you use the keypad, also when you are holding a phone that doesn’t fit the palm.
- Put that phone down. Don’t hold it in your hand. Use it while it is kept on the table.
- Use earphones instead of holding it to your ear while talking. This will also save you form harmful tech radiation.
- Limit the use of your phone.
Don’t make posture slave to your phone. You can get a new phone but not a new body. Technology was made to increase productivity, not decrease it. Prevent your cell phone from being a pain in the neck.
Signing off for now.. Stay Tech safe.
Prohuman Health 