I’m sharing some more information on neck pain and common things that I see come into my office. You may have heard about text neck or tech neck, either of those terms are common terms for neck pain. The big concern is that with these conditions we are constantly looking down. The studies are showing that the average person looks down at their mobile device for about 4 hours a day. (References below) So that is 4 hours of constant and extra pressure on the back of the neck. Another study that puts this information together is that the angle of your neck in forward flexion, looking down, increases the amount of weight or pressure on the neck. The average person’s head is around 15 pounds when their head is in an upright position. As you lean your head down, gravity is going to work against your neck. The numbers that they have found is that when your head is 60 degrees looking down, that is about 60 pounds of extra pressure on your neck. Now why is that a big deal? Your muscles are constantly pulling and stretched out for roughly 4 hours a day, and they react by becoming tight, painful, and “knotted up”. Meanwhile the muscles in the front of the neck are doing almost nothing and become weaker and weaker because they don’t have to do anything. The muscles in front of the neck are really important in helping your head maintain position and prevent injury with neck motions as well as quick motions like a whiplash. This also creates a muscle imbalance in the neck muscles. However, it doesn’t just stop at the top of the shoulders. When you look down, you can feel tension all the way down that mid back region. This can make a huge difference down the road. Some of these changes to the body don’t happen quickly, but if left unchanged can make a significant decline in your health and changes to your body structure that cannot be altered. And again, when you continue this poor posture you are perpetuating the problem of tight muscles in the back and weak muscles in the front. Tech neck or text neck is a big deal, especially for some of the kids these days as they look down at their phones for so long while they are developing their spines and muscular system. So, look up every once in a while and maybe put your phone out in front of your face to keep a good position.
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Tahoe’s Premiere Sports Chiropractor
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How long do people use their mobile devices per day?
Texting putting 60 pounds of pressure on spine.
