What is Text Neck and how to fix it

Just as Oxford adds new word to its dictionary every now and then, the health industry has now come up with a new syndrome that they call Text Neck Syndrome. Yes, it is a term used to describe the neck pain and damage caused by looking down at your cell phone for too long.

Although, these are not the only problems caused by this posture of staring down on your smart device all the time. Other problems include: (Symptoms)

- Upper back pain, which can range from being sharp short spasms felt in the back muscles to a chronic trouble

- Stiffness in the shoulder muscles leading to painful spasms

- Pinching of a cervical nerve can lead to possible neurological symptoms that can diffuse down to your arms causing pain 

79% of the population between the ages 18 and 44 have their cell phones with them almost all the time—with only 2 hours of their waking day spent without their cell phone on hand.

Source: spine-health.com

How does one treat Text Neck Syndrome? 

(The simplest answer to this would be to stop spending most hours staring down at that digital screen in your hand)...but let us look at some easy exercises that will help relieve the pain experienced because of this bad posture. The whole problem is caused due to unacceptable body posture and therefore precautions are needed and exercises are aimed at re-aligning your body to a "neutral" line which will not stress your neck.

- This is not an "exercise" per se, but as a precautionary method, one should always keep their cell phones, laptops, computers at eye level. You want to text someone? Bring the phone up instead of bending down to do so

- Yoga, pilates, Bar Method are exercises that are deeply focused n body posture. Practicing these will definitely get your body's alignment back and help you fix your stance

- Having a strong core can help exponentially. Abdominal and lower back muscles help support your upper body, including your neck, and therefore exercises that strengthen your core should also be on your to-do list

- The most basic of all would be the neck exercises that can help the muscles become flexible and strong. Visiting a health professional will help you a great deal as they will have the right neck exercises to treat the pain

Next time any of your friends complain of neck or shoulder pains, just snatch their phone away from them.