Two Solutions to Reduce your Risk of Neck Pain
The world has seen an enormous technological boom in the last 20+ years. It’s easy to forget how quickly technology has advanced. Think about this: the first version of the iPhone hit the market in June 2007. The technology available in this subtle rectangle has more computing power than all the computers used to land Neil Armstrong on the moon in 1969.
Technology has its pros and cons, of course. One of the major drawbacks of technology I’ve seen in my time as a physical therapist is the inevitable postural challenges. The ubiquity of phones, tablets, and computers has resulted in most people engaging in below-average posture for long periods of time.
Next time you walk into a café or the office, look around. You’ll likely see loads of folks, young and old, whose heads are buried in their devices. Their heads are down, their necks stick out like turtles, their shoulders round. These shifts may be tolerable for a brief period, but this excessive load can produce huge amounts of pain in the long run.
Let’s do some quick math. If you work a sedentary job, you’re probably sitting for at least 8 hours per day. 8 hours x 5 days per week x 48 weeks worked in the year = 1,920 hours of sitting at work per year. And that doesn’t even consider what your activities look like outside of work hours, nor your neck posture while you sleep.
Be honest: does this picture look familiar? Does your sitting posture look like this? Many of us sit with this forward head posture for at least 8 hours per day. If you aren’t sure you look like this, I encourage you to ask a friend, family member, or colleague to take a candid picture of your sitting posture when you aren’t expecting the picture. You’ll likely be surprised.
I don’t expect you to be perfect with sitting posture. I’m certainly not. But when you focus on tucking your chin and sitting upright, the relative weight of your head ranges from about 10-12 lbs. As the neck comes forward, the relative weight of your head goes up accordingly, sometimes up to a range of 32-42 lbs!
Think about holding a 20 pound dumbbell with one hand. You may be able to hold the dumbbell close to your chest for several minutes at a time, but if you straighten your elbow and hold the dumbbell directly in front of you, chances are you won’t last anywhere near as long. Why? Physics and lever arms! The specific physics of this is beyond the scope of this blog post (I’m happy to nerd out anytime you’d like!) but the principle remains true for the neck. Bad neck posture = increased relative weight of the head.
Why does this matter? It matters because this places tremendous strain on your upper trapezius and suboccipital muscles, among others, to keep your head upright. The upper traps then become predisposed to developing muscle knots and trigger points, which are over-worked areas of muscle that “tighten up” and don’t release. They can even encompass small local nerve fibers which can become uncomfortable to the touch, not just when you compress the trigger point but also to behind your ear, for example.
When the muscles are unhappy like this, they become less adept at working the way they’re supposed to. In the case of the upper traps, they pull the scapula (aka shoulder blade) up towards the ear, predisposing you to shoulder and back injuries, and potentially even tension headaches, too. Ask yourself: how important is your quality of life?
Solution #1: Focus on sitting more upright and retracting your neck. Notice that I wrote “focus on” sitting more upright, not necessarily sitting more upright. Yes, of course I want you to sit with better posture. But we are intelligent human beings. The brain is involved in the vast majority of physical and mental activities, so we must think about sitting upright before you can perform the action. Prime to brain for movement. Become a creature of habit.
When you retract or pull back your chin, you should be going from the 32/42 pound picture above to the 12 pound picture. Your eyes should still be looking up, not at the floor. This will lighten the workload on the often-overworked upper traps and surrounding musculature.
Solution #2: Hang a note next to your computer that says something along the lines of, “How is my posture today?” Getting these frequent reminders primes the brain to tell the corresponding nerves and muscles to sit upright. There is a lot of fascinating psychological research about the importance of repetition to remember information; this is no different.
Many people think of injuries as being a one-time incident, like your neighbor who tore their ACL when they twisted their knee wrong playing soccer. This occurred not because of volume, but because of load to the ACL. This posture discussion is on the opposite end of the spectrum. People don’t often get neck pain because of that one time they carried an elephant on their head. It occurs because of excessive load over a long period of time. It hurts just the same but can be even more costly.
Take care of yourself before you’re dealing with the consequences of thousands of hours sitting at your computer, phone, or tablet with terrible posture. If you have any trouble with it, come see me at Premier PT. We’ll take great care of you.
Whatever holiday you celebrate, Eliza and I hope you have a great holiday season and a happy New Year!
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