Are your electronics killing you

Have you ever watched a person text or work on their mobile phone or hand held device for an extended period of time? If you have maybe you have noticed some of the following things; The longer a person texts the lower and lower the head may go down and you may even see their head start to stick out more and more. Also they tend to roll their shoulders and slouch their upper back forward. Another common thing is to see their arms wrist of fingers sore from the constant tapping of the keys or with a lot of devices now they are not even keys just a continual tapping on the screen accessing the virtual keyboard.

Some of the above are things that I notice in me and others who use their mobile device a lot to work and play. In myself I notice that using the phone a lot to text and write emails causes the muscles in my neck and upper back to get very tight and I can even on occasion start to feel a headache come on.

In the article Your Body is Sending You a Message by Dr. Dean Fishman, it's mentions that the Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that young people 8-18 years old spend in excess of seven-and-a-half hours a day using some form of mobile media. The continual head forward position among other things will be a cause of aches in pains for years to come. In the book Physiology of the Joint Volume 3 by Kapandji it explains that every inch of forward the head is from its normal position over the shoulders can equate to increasing the weight of the head by 10lbs!! reach back and feel your traps, is Kapandji talking about you? The forward head posture can also lead to long term muscle strain, disc degeneration, and even nerve impingement (Mayo Clinic Health Letter, March 2000).

Now if you are like me you are probably not going to go as far as to get rid of your phone, PDA, PSP or whatever your device of choice may be. Our phones are great we just have to learn how to use them and still take care of our body. The American Chiropractic Association (ACA) has a few simple guidelines that one can use to help you get the most out of your electronics while saving your neck and back. A few of them are the following:

Sit upright, keeping your ears over your shoulders.
Look down with your eyes and gently tuck your chin in, not forward.
Never pinch the phone between your ear and shoulder.
Using a headset
Minimize the time you bend the elbows to hold the screen up to see it.
Instead of returning all your e-mails on the phone, wait until you can

use the computer.
Avoid leaning on the flexed elbow while talking on the phone or in the car.

If after trying these tips you still can't seem to get rid of pain or discomfort that you may be feeling its may be a sign that you need to get help from a health care professional. This type of mechanical pain is a big part of what I as a chiropractor deal with day in and day out. Chiropractors are a great cost effective way to treat this and similar types of pain. if you need helping finding a chiropractor near you I would be more than happy to help. Also if you would like to have a copy of the article for the ACA with more information and tips you can email me and I can send it to you in PDF format at DrCarpenterDC@gmail.com