What the Heck is Tech Neck? - Premier Health Chiropractors

Hey guys, welcome to this week’s Wellness Wednesday. Got to mix up my scene here a little bit. Thanks to Ashley, which is super nice, but this week I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about something called tech neck and for anyone who is familiar with tech neck, they’re not a big fan of it. A lot of people have been experiencing it a bit more because we’re spending so much more time on our computers and on our technology right now.

So essentially what tech neck is, it’s soreness and pain in the neck and shoulders. It’s predominantly related to the fact that we spend our time like this and a lot of it happens because we spend, our lives revolved around our technology, hence the name tech neck. Super fun. But with the pandemic and more people working from home right now we’re having a lot more people coming in with neck pain, headaches, and then soreness throughout the shoulders, down into the shoulder blades and even symptoms of weakness, numbness, tingling down into the arms because these muscles are so tight, which is just crazy.

We have so many people coming in with symptoms they’ve never experienced before. A lot of it goes back to like I’ve mentioned in prior videos, the fact that our routines are completely shifted, they’re completely off and so I think it’s really important to address this right now because again, with our routines being off, our bodies are off.

So one wonderful way to combat this is something that I tell my patients to do often and I’m sure that they just curse me every time the alarm goes off is to set your alarm on your phone for every hour and every time that that alarm goes off you either, even if you’re sitting and you can’t get up, stretch your neck, pull your head to the side, pull your head down into your armpit so that you’re stretching out these large muscle groups that are trying to hold this large ball of knowledge up because really our heads are like a bowling ball on a stick.

So we know that our head is about 8 to 10 pounds and it’s being supported by this curve. It should be a nice healthy curve in our neck here. And then it’s kind of supported all the way down through the spine. And our spine should be a nice shock absorber, which is why I recommend and most people are going to recommend that you have a nice healthy curve through there.

What happens with tech neck is we start to hold that head forward and anyone who’s familiar with physics, the more that you bring that center of gravity forward, the more that perceived weight is going to be. So we actually do a scan in our office called the posture pro scan that will actually help to measure the perceived weight of your head on your body. So it’s kind of interesting because it’ll see, “Okay, well you hold your head four degrees forward from what should be neutral,” and to see what your body actually perceives the weight of your head to be.

It’s mind blowing because we’ll see two, 300 pounds is the perceived weight and people are blown away and they’re like, well that’s why I always feel like my shoulders are tense. That’s why I feel like I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders and it’s massively important to make sure that we’re taking care of that because our bodies are amazing. They can handle the stress for so long until they can’t. And when they can’t, that’s when we’re like, “Well, where did this come from? I swear I just lifted that really light bag. It couldn’t have been more than five pounds. I’m not weak.”

No, you’re not weak, but your body’s been carrying this extra stress for years, for longer than we’ve even been aware. And that five pound bag, it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s that one little thing that your body said, “Nope, I’m done.” And now it’s making you be forced to address what’s going on. So a great way to help manage these things while we’re at home, while we honestly have a little bit more time for some people, it’s to develop these routines, to develop these habits, to take care of our body and to start strengthening the little stabilizer muscles that are often too weak that aren’t addressed.

And so one of my favorite ways to address the little stabilizers in conjunction with our stretching that I just talked about, it’s actually one that I think it’s really fun to have parents do with their kids because you’re literally going to tuck your chin back, bring all those chins out and hold it for two Mississippi and relax and you don’t have to put your hand there. But I do because I’m on video right now and I’m not going to show all my chins, but with this, it’s going to be strengthening those deep muscles up deep in the neck.

And so these are simple things that you can be doing to incorporate into your daily life. Again, there’s so many more things. So if you have your chiropractor, contact them, whether you’re going into their office or you’re just talking to them about what the best fit is for you during this pandemic to see it going in, or virtual is the best option. Do that.

If you don’t have a chiropractor contact one that you trust or that is around you, look for a recommendation. But this is a great time to take care of this stuff right now because once the pandemic is over, all of these things are going to be coming out in full force. So I hope you found this stuff interesting, and I will check in with you guys next week. Bye.