Dr. Chris Renne here. Hopefully you are ready for a week of Thanksgiving and rest. I sure know I am!
Today, I wanted to share some new information that you may find helpful regarding your cellphone and what frequent use can do to your posture and well being.
Good posture is incredibly important to a healthy spine. I always encourage anyone who spends their workday in front of a computer to concentrate on improving their posture. Being hunched in front of a screen eight hours a day can contribute to spine and neck pain even in someone who is otherwise healthy.
But these days it is not just office workers who are craning their necks to stare at a tiny screen: it’s anyone with a cellphone and a texting plan. And that is bad news for our spines, according to research performed by Dr. Kenneth Hansraj, chief of spine surgery at New York Spine Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine. In this CBS News article the study reported some alarming results:
“People spend an average of 2 to 4 hours each day with their neck bent at this unnatural angle while shooting off emails or texts. That's 700 to 1,400 hours a year.”
Wow, 1,400 hours a year spent staring at a tiny screen! And the study found that being slumped over your smartphone greatly increases the amount of weight your neck and and back have to support:
“[Dr. Hansraj’s] study found that bending your head at a 60 degree angle to get a better look at your selfie is putting 60 pounds' worth of pressure on your cervical spine, the portion of the spine above the shoulders. That's more than the weight of the average 7 year old.”
But even if you aren’t hunched over at a sixty degree angle you can still be putting a lot of stress on your spine:
Tilting your head a mere 15 degrees puts 27 pounds of pressure on your spine; a 30 degree neck tilt could equal 40 pounds of pressure; a 45 degree tilt adds the force of 49 pounds.
Poor posture doesn’t just look bad, it can cause lots of problems:
But it's not just the big slump that could eventually cause you to look like Lurch. "Loss of the natural curve of the cervical spine leads to incrementally increased stresses about the cervical spine. These stresses may lead to early wear, tear, degeneration and possibly surgeries."
But that’s not all. As any good chiropractor knows,
Bad posture has been linked to a host of medical problems, including headaches and other neurological problems, depression, constipation, and heart disease. At a minimum, constant slouching is likely to cause a lot of chronic pain.
What can you do? Well, you can try to spend less time peering at your iPhone. Maybe it’s time to pick up the phone and call that friend instead of sending another text. And when you do need to use your phone to text or email, try to maintain a neutral position: back straight, shoulders aligned with your ears and your shoulder-blades pulled back.
Just as there are lots of downsides to poor posture, there are lots of upsides to good posture:
Other studies have found good posture elevates testosterone and serotonin in the body, and also reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Good posture has even been linked to personality traits such as tolerance for risk-taking.
This is an excellent reminder that it’s important to be mindful of our posture no matter what we are doing. Sitting straight up in the office all day won’t do us any good if we are spending a couple hours slouched over sending texts as soon as we go home.
Next time you pull our your smartphone, pay attention to how you hold yourself while you are using it. Try and get in the habit of keeping your spine in a neutral position while texting or emailing. Who knows, you might find that you start feeling better and feeling better about yourself if you do.
As always, be well.
Christopher B. Renne, D.C.
www.activechirocenter.com
Note: Dr. Renne is a Jacksonville, Florida based chiropractic physician. He has been in active practice since 1998 and specializes in the treatment of spinal related pain. He has been a Jacksonville resident since 2000.
