You eat well, you train hard and yet you still feel like you’re falling short of hitting your peak. Low energy, grogginess, shortage of breath and neck and back pain are just some of the problems you may be suffering from. It affects nearly everyone, no matter what your age or level of fitness. It’s a problem that originates in just one area of your body but affects your overall health, including your mental as well as your physical state.
It’s texting neck
You’ve probably seen it in yourself or in those guys and girls who are physically active but walk around with a chicken head or giraffe neck.
Your neck is designed to remain vertical, supporting the weight of your skull in a perfect line from the top of your head straight down through your body to your feet. The average head weighs 10-12 lbs. When your head sits perfectly upon your neck and shoulders, the body naturally adapts to holding this weight. But if your head is constantly pulled forward, the weight of your head pulls on your neck and puts pressure on your spine.When your head is pulled forward the additional pressure on your neck, shoulders and back rise dramatically causing serious tissue damage.
In fact, every inch your head is thrust forward from its natural position adds another 10 lbs of stress on the neck, shoulders, back and spine.
Your Poor Head Posture Is Making You Look 10 LBS Heavier and 2 Inches Shorter Than What Actually You Are.
Not only does Forward Head Posture give your back that ugly hunch and crouched-over look, it also causes much deeper, serious problems including:
- Constant fatigue and lack of energy
- Pain in your neck, shoulders or upper, lower and middle back
- Permanent damage to your joints, muscles, ligaments, blood vessels and nerves
- Headaches and migraines
- Poor sleep or insomnia
- Arthritis
- Impaired athletic performance
- Loss of height by 2 inches
- Looking 10 lbs fatter than you actually are
- Affects your hormonal health
- Noisy mouth breathing, snoring & sleep apnea
- Early degeneration of your spine
- Pinched and trapped nerves
- Decreased range of motion
- Lack of confidence
- Blood Flow to the Brain
- Asthma
- Decreased lung capacity by up to 30%
- Harmful effects to vision and hearing
- Jaw pain and sinus issues
- Dizziness, vertigo and balance issues
- Burdens your digestive system
Why “Texting Neck” Is Killing Your Confidence, Sleep, Brain Health and Performance
Every minute you spend in these deadly positions contributes to even more long-term pain and damage to your body.
Here are 4 ways texting neck posture is destroying your health:
1. Office Guy Syndrome:
It's like the old man's hunch curving your body forward with your shoulders dropped making you look weak, submissive and shorter than you really are. The curve of your neck and back means you may drop height by a couple of inches and look a lot older than you are.
2. Declining Confidence, Energy & Mood:
If you have poor head posture, the effects go beyond physical. Forward head posture can have a seriously detrimental effect on your mood, sapping your energy, leading to depressed thoughts and hitting your confidence hard.
3. Sleep Disruption & Brain Fog:
It kills the quality of your sleep and you’re more likely to suffer from sleep apnea. Due to the misalignment of your head and torso, your airway can become blocked when you sleep which starves your brain of oxygen, severely disrupts sleep quality and leads to snoring.When your brain does not get the blood and oxygen it requires to function, you'll often experience side effects like headaches and migraines. Without the rest you need; your work, relationships and energy levels will be negatively affected.
4. The Peak Performance Trap:
Forward Head Posture or what some people call "turtleneck" has been shown to lead to a decrease in the strength in the muscles involved in breathing which will decrease your breathing and can reduce your lung capacity by 30% affecting athletic performance.
Every day you fail to deal with a forward head posture is another day closer to irreparable, permanent damage to your neck, back and shoulders, for the rest of your life.
Static stretching only provides temporary relief in pain, muscle tension and an increase in movement but within a few hours, your forward head posture is back to the way it was since the stretch did not target the main cause of your head forward posture. There needs to be a combination of corrective exercise and other techniques to open up and release the neck while activating other muscles so you can return to a balanced state with proper movement in the neck.
Including:
1. Muscle Re-Education Drills:
If your neck has been thrust forward for too long carrying too much weight, it needs some serious re-alignment. These drills re-educating your muscles to put your head in the right position again.
2. Breathing Exercises:
Deep belly breathing helps release tension in the neck, shoulders, back and the whole body so your muscles will relax and help bring the head and body into balance.
3. Mobility Exercises:
The more your head moves forward, the more your joints lock up. Mobility movements are used to unlock the joints in your spine to decrease the stress and damage.
4. Deep Cervical Flexor Training:
The cervical flexors sit at the back of your neck and their weakness causes your head to drop forward. Recent research has shown that re-training the flexors is the key to restoring the balance of your head.
5. Massage:
This therapeutic technique loosens up and lengthens muscles that have become shortened and helps to relieve trigger points that have built up.
6. Stretching:
Targets shortened muscles in order to lengthen and elongate them. Done in the correct sequence static stretching can be very effective.
7. Postural Ergonomics Strengthening:
Now that we have unravelled the head, neck and upper body by targeting all the muscles and joints that are affected by texting neck, we need to work on keeping things in that new, ideal beneficial posture.
Conclusion: If you feel you are suffering from above problem, seek immediate expert’s advice.