We talk a great deal on the blog about the importance of keeping proper posture while driving, sitting on the computer, or watching television. Most recently, one of my patients brought to my attention one activity that I had totally overlooked: texting.
This patient was having neck and mid-back pain typical of poor upper body posture and was trying to work out what activities were causing the symptoms to worsen. After some searching, he realized that the main contributor to his pain was not his computer work or car time; it was text messaging on his cell phone.
A recent chiropractic publication confirms what he intuitively deduced. “These days, people are constantly ‘connected’ to their hand-held devices, whether it is their cellular phones, portable video games like Nintendo DS, e-readers such as Amazon Kindle, or they are just using apps on an iPhone.” In fact, a recent survey found that 8-18 year olds spend in excess of seven-and-a-half-hours a day using some form of mobile media.
Be aware of your forward head posture or “text neck,” and use the strategies written in many articles throughout this blog to correct them. Small corrections over a long period of time add up to big changes in your body.
Healing Tip of the Week
Get that head back on top of your shoulders! Your head is like a bowling ball, for every inch that your head migrates forward, the force it takes for your neck muscles to keep it upright effectively doubles.
A friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Dan Kehres, once wrote, “Sitting is one of the unhealthiest activities one can do.” How so? The body isn’t designed to sit. It’s designed to move. As many office workers can relate, when we sit too much, unhealthy events begin to occur. The muscles underneath the back of your head start to get irritated causing tension headaches. Your chin starts to jut forward flattening your spinal curve, irritating joints, nerves and discs in your neck. The shoulders start to round forward causing shoulder and mid-back pain. The low back rounds forward irritating the muscles and increasing the stress on the lumbar discs and nerves.
Unfortunately, modern living is requiring us to sit more and more. How many hours do you sit per day; 8, 10, 12 or even 16? Fortunately, there are stretches and exercises you can do while sitting at the office or waiting at red lights. At AWC, we incorporate these into a program called “Chair Care.” Chair Care is a set of exercises designed to counter the effects of constant sitting. With Chair Care, you will learn exercises, such as “The Fonz” and “Head of the Cow.”
Healing Tip of the Week
Try this Chair Care exercise when you feel your low-back tightening. Make sure that the majority of your weight is supported by your arms. You can use the arm rests as well.
