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Bad mobile-phone posture puts the weight of a small child on your neck

Mobile and smart devices have forever changed the way our bodies interact with the world, and not...
Newstalk
Newstalk

14.28 20 Nov 2014


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Bad mobile-phone posture puts...

Bad mobile-phone posture puts the weight of a small child on your neck

Newstalk
Newstalk

14.28 20 Nov 2014


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Mobile and smart devices have forever changed the way our bodies interact with the world, and not always for the better. Thumbs rubbed red raw in an effort to crush candy are just the beginning, as now a spinal surgeon says looking down all day at your phone is like having 27kg hanging from your neck.

As Dr Kenneth K Hansraj points out, that's like having an eight-year-old child sitting on your head every time you tweet and text.

Dr Hansraj, chief surgeon at New York Spine Surgery & Rehabilitation Medicine, produced a paper on the effects of looking down at phones all day. He concludes that moving your head forward and exerting that much force on your neck and spine is seriously bad for your health - and that the average person does this for at least two hours every day.

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The study, published in Surgical Technology International, advises that we align our ears with our shoulders, with our shoulder blades pushed back, to get the best posture. This will lower body stress and reduce the amount of cortisol (a stress hormone) the body produces.

Bad smart-device posture could be detrimental to the spine, leading to early wear and tear that could require surgery.

A few solutions: hold your phone straight in front of you instead of bending your head down,place your tablet at a 30 degree angle when typing (the angle protects the wrists) or more perpendicularly if just reading, and stretch your neck back to correct a forward neck posture.


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