The modern day lifestyle brings us many great things, but hey have brought them with great costs also! One of the most significant but silent stresses on our functional and physiological well-being is growing and growing with time and technological advancements. We are all probably guilty of looking down at our phone, or slumping back on the couch from time to time (or all the time for some??). Some of the worst offenders would have to be the young kids given a laptop or tablet to keep occupied, while they look down and sit with it on their lap.
Children are pretty carefree, they don’t tend to live in pain often, if ever. As adults, we tend to notice more and more with age that aches and pains begin to be more prevalent in our lives with our repetitive lifestyles – until old age where pain is another fact of life… The mistakes and injuries we experience during youth often present themselves and are paid for when we are older. We are doing this thing called ‘Posture’ 24 hours a day, we need to make sure we do it as well as we can for as long as we can, this is the biggest thing that determines how much and how fast you get arthritis, not age!
While we look down at our phone, our necks are bent forwards for a period of time, we accumulate pressure on the bones and discs and stretch the ligaments and muscles that stabilise and hold the bones in place. Eventually, the bones and discs remain deformed, damaged and ideal posture is permanently lost. This has a massive cost in the form of pain, dysfunction and reduced quality of nerve function to organs which reduced your potential to remain healthy! Common symptoms that occur from regularly giving yourself text neck are; headaches, sinusitis, neck and shoulder pain, poor sleep and decreased energy, difficulty breathing, amongst many others.
