How Texting Hurts Your Posture and Your Spinal column.

Smartphones and other mobile portable gadgets make it simpler to text and read email messages on the go. They are so practical that lots of people cannot think of life without them, however this dependency comes at a price. It's now been proven that spending endless hours dropped over these devices can put you at danger for serious illness.

In its International Internet Trends & Screen Time Report for 2014, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, (KPCB) released some surprising data on the time Americans spend looking down at mobile screens - PCS, tablets, and smartphones. Smartphones turned up tops, as the most viewed media.

The KPCB report found that in 2014 adults in America spent approximately 151 minutes daily, (that's more than 2 hours), viewing their smartphone screens. What does that mean for your posture and spine? Simply think about the position of the neck and head while you're taking a look at the smartphone.

How Texting influences Posture.

While you are texting or playing a portable computer game, the neck is in an abnormal position, because the head and neck are tilted forward, and the shoulders are rounded. This is typically referred to as forward head posture or FHP. The risks of FHP are well recorded.

Tilting the head forward causes bad posture, since it moves the head from the normal postural position, which ensures a healthy back and neutral spine. When the spine is neutral, the ears and shoulders are on the same plane, and the shoulders are back.

FHP puts the head out of positioning, and enhances tension on the neck, and muscles of the upper back. The more forward the head moves, the greater the stress. FHP typically causes neck and pain in the back, and can also overload the spine tissues, causing irreversible changes to the spinal column due to disc compression.

Text Neck.

The new technology has actually offered a brand-new name to FHP, as it's been dubbed 'Text neck,' by chiropractic physician Dr. Dean L. Fishman. Dr. Fishman created the phrase since in the last few years he discovered that a great deal of young people were visiting his practice experiencing headaches, neck discomfort, and shoulder pain. He soon recognized that the discomfort being experienced by these young clients was being triggered by mobile innovation, due to the lots of hours they invested texting - with their head angled forward.

A healthy neck has a cervical curve that points to the back of the neck, and this facilitates optimal health and function. However, for people with a text neck, the cervical spinal column is reversed, putting pressure on the spine cord, and commonly leading to spinal column degeneration.

The phenomenon has reached epidemic percentages in children, since they spend many hours each week texting, as well as playing games on their devices. The problem is anticipated to worsen, due to the fact that mobile phones are now the device of option for those wishing to access the web.

In a study entitled Assessment of Stresses in the Cervical Spinal column Dued to Posture and Position of the Head, Dr. Kenneth K. Hansraj lost more light on the 'text neck' phenomenon. Dr. Hansraj is Chief of Spinal column Surgical treatment, at New York Spinal column Surgical treatment and Rehab Medication. In his study which was published in the Surgical Innovation International in December 2014, Dr. Hansraj explained how FHP negatively impacts the spinal column.

When the head is in a neutral position, the regular adult head weighs about 10 to 12 pounds, and there is no anxiety on the cervical spinal column. The weight the neck and upper spinal column has to bear boosts substantially, the more the head is bent forward.

Dr. Hansraj's research study findings suggested that bending the head forward by as low as 15 degrees, resulted in this weight increasing to 27 pounds. If the head is tilted forward to 60 degrees, this would enhance the tension on the spinal column to 60 pounds. That weight on the upper spinal column can last for numerous hours every day, depending on how much time you spend hunched over your smartphone.