You have probably noticed that you are spending too much staring at your smartphone, however, that is completely normal considering how our world has developed. This whole planet has been built around the internet and the ease of access with our smartphones. Our little “pocket-buddies” have made our lives much easier by giving us quick access to the latest news, a local burger place when you are hungry, show you the weather for the next couple of days so you can plan a trip with your friends and family and millions of other things you can think of. Every information is just a click of a button, or rather, a press of a finger.
However, while these devices can better our lives, they can also have a bad effect on our health. Especially our posture, back and most importantly our necks. People that spend more than three hours a day looking at their phones usually experience back pain or pain in their necks. This pain in the neck is often referred to as “text neck”. The name of it probably gives you an idea of where it comes from and why it happens. One more thing, that goes for posture would be a device that fixes it for you, you can read more about it here, but of course, exercise is exercise!
The reason why you experience pain is that the bones in your neck have started pressing on your muscles, ligaments, and tendon. An average person’s head weighs anywhere between eight to twelve pounds and every time you push you lean your head forward to look at your phone the weight that your neck endures doubles or even triples. The most simple solution to this problem is to just get rid of your smartphone, however, a lot of us actually depend on them. We either need it for work, for our friends or family, which is why we have made a list of a few exercises to help you reduce the pain of text neck.
If you do not manage to remove your neck pain with these exercises, you should consider physiotherapy. Check out Physio Inq Mobile for more information.
3The Downward Dog Pose
The downward dog pose is great if you want to open your shoulders and your chest wall, which are the most common victims of excess smartphone usage. This whole exercise focuses on your upper body. Next time you are stuck on your phone working or entertaining yourself try to notice if you scrunch your shoulders upwards. This is because your body subconsciously tries to remove all that weight from your head off the neck. Do this exercise one or two times a day for a couple of weeks and you will instantly see a reduction in pain from text neck. You might even completely eradicate the pain.
2Dhanurasana
Do not let the name confuse you, the pose is not as complicated as its name. This exercise will also help you to get out of the habit of scrunching your shoulders when you are on your phone.
1Standing Forward Bend
Before you do this exercise make sure you do some light stretching. With this exercise, you will stretch all of your neck muscles and hamstrings which are the main culprits when it comes to neck pain.
