It’s time to get smart

Listening to your parents and avoiding long hours of hunching over a computer or texting your friends might be a good idea unless you want to spend the next few years of your life in pain and spending huge amounts with physiotherapists. With cheap texting packages and tablet computers now the rage with the wired generation, chiropractors, physiotherapists and even surgeons are getting rich, catering to the miserable masses who are coming in with back, neck and shoulder ache. Moveover, Smartphone Thumb, Text Neck is the next lifestyle ailment to look out for. With smartphones enabling games and extended browsing sessions, Internet users end up craning their neck for extended periods, causing injury and pain. Not surprising if you consider that the average human head weighs between 10lb and 12lb and flexing the neck at an angle makes it harder to support. The result, pain and stiffness which can radiate down the shoulders, arms and wrists. Headaches and even arthritis are off shoots that can cause long term damage ‘Because the head and neck move forwards, it will eventually lead to a reversal of the natural curve of the neck. Postural changes will then occur, which can lead to serious problems in this area,” a pain expert said recently. Tim Hutchful, of the British Chiropractic Association, said: “Our muscles are designed to flex and retract. If you stay in a fixed posture for too long like peering over a phone, you are putting those muscles under stress. Muscles will go into spasm if they have to hold such a position.” He added that tall young women with slender necks were anatomically most at risk from neck problems, as were sedentary people not used to using different muscles. So what are you waiting for? Dump that tablet computer for a while and go do some neck exercises instead!