In the United States, neck pain has an annual prevalence rate that exceeds 30% among adults. It’s a condition that affects the physical, social, and psychological health of an individual, and hence, must not be taken lightly.
In this blog, we’ll discuss text neck, and how your job might be behind it.
Let’s begin!
What is text neck?
Text neck, also known as Turtle Neck posture or anterior head syndrome, is a medical condition that’s caused due to an excessive amount of stress on deep neck muscles and across the shoulder for extended periods of time.
The long-term stress leads to both acute and chronic neck pain, which can severely affect the patient’s quality of life.
What causes text neck?
Modern-day computing devices such as laptops and smartphones are the biggest culprits behind text neck.
Good neck posture requires maintaining an upright position where the head is not tilted, and the ears are aligned with the center of the shoulders.
On average, the heads exert around 12 pounds of force on the neck muscles when you have good posture.
But when the head is tilted out of its natural position, the amount of pressure substantially increases.
In fact, tilting the head 45 degrees can exert as much as 49 pounds of force—i.e., four times greater—on the neck muscles.
To put this into perspective, that’s the same weight as the average 7-year-old.
How Your Job Might Be Causing Postural Misalignment
Digital transformations have completely revolutionized the world. In fact, the modern workplace remains incomplete without computers, laptops, and smart devices. Even if you’re not working in the IT industry, the chances are that you work at a work station.
Prolonged sitting results in muscular and skeletal imbalances. Sitting for hours with a neck titled can lead to posture problems, which results in postural misalignment.
Moreover, it’s not uncommon to use smartphones during work, which further adds to the problem as people often tilt their head more than 45 degrees while texting or looking at their mobile devices.
Smartphones and tablets have many adverse effects on your neck muscles.
Get treatment
Continuous sitting in front of a desk affects posture and cause physical strain and discomfort. If not treated, it can cause inflammation of the neck ligaments and nerve irritation.
Moreover, it can increase curvature in the spine, which can have adverse, long-term health consequences.
Therefore, it’s critical that you seek professional medical treatment and work on posture correction to manage the symptoms associated with postural misalignment.
If you want to treat your neck condition at the earliest, get in touch with us today! At HealthRite Medical and Rehab, we offer physical therapy among several other medical facilities to patients in Houston, TX. Our professionals can restore function for patients at varying levels. Contact us to learn more!
