Take a minute right now to notice your body. Notice where your head is as you read this sentence. Is it reaching forward towards your computer monitor? Or is it back in line with the rest of your spine? When you’re texting someone is your head pitched forward, looking down at your phone or are you sitting up with a more balanced posture, your ears aligned over your shoulders? When your ears are forward of your shoulders as your eyes reach for the screen, your available spinal support structures disappear.
This my friends is called – Tech Neck AKA Forward Head Posture.
The end result?
Pain.
Spasms.
Headaches.
Tension.
What are those support structures that are causing all this fuss and bother, you might ask? They are the muscles that support your head on your shoulders. There are four muscles on each side of your head (for a total of eight muscles) that do the difficult but important work of supporting your head on your body. When one, two or more of those muscles become too tight, it affects the alignment of the bones that sit on top of your spine. When the bones in your neck don’t have their usual range of motion, you can’t extend or rotate your neck in a healthy manner. The muscles and bones of your neck will only work correctly if your head is successfully on top of your spine. If you spend way too much time sitting with your ears in front of your shoulders, you will inevitably wind up with pain.
So what do you do then? The short term solution – get adjusted so you will have better movement and less spasms. The longer solution – make sure you spend more time sitting with your ears aligned with your shoulders and less time with your head bent forward.
Your future self will thank you when your neck doesn’t hurt anymore!
If you’re interested in booking an appointment with me click here!
