Roughly 80% of the population between the ages of 18 and 44 have their cell phones with them almost all the time and people spend an average of two to four hours a day with their heads looking down at their phones. Aside from the obvious dangerous effects of texting, such as texting while driving/walking leading to injury, there are various other hazards related to using our phones constantly. Recent studies have found that bending your head at different angles can put extra pressure on your spine.
A study conducted by Dr. Kenneth Hansraj, chief of spine surgery at New York Spine Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine, found that bending your head at a 60 degree angle, like people do when they look down at their phones, can add up to 60 pounds of pressure on your cervical spine. The average adult head weighs only 10 to 12 pounds but the angle at which we tilt our heads while texting can increase that weight due to gravity. The cervical spine is the part of the spine above a person’s shoulders. Leaning your head forward can increase the stress and reduce the natural curve in your spine which leads to wear and tear, degeneration, and possible surgery.
Text neck is a term used to describe neck pain associated with looking down at your electronic device too often or for too long. Text neck most commonly causes neck pain and soreness. Looking down at your phone too frequently can also lead to upper back pain, shoulder pain and tightness, tension headaches, as well as nerve damage. A pinched cervical nerve can lead to pain, numbness, or tingling in the arm or hand. Text neck can be prevented by holding your cell phone at eye level as much as possible and by taking breaks from looking at your electronic devices throughout the day. When your heads tilts forward, it loads the front of the discs in the spine. This can lead to cracked, slipped, or herniated discs. The prolonged posture due to text neck can also lead to arthritis and muscle deformation. This posture is not exclusive to chronic texters. Architects and dentists can also present with these same symptoms. There is a free phone application created by The Text Neck Institute called Text Neck Indicator that indicates when a phone is held at an angle that can leads to text neck.
Your neck is not the only area of the body that is affected by smartphone use. Lower back pain problems are being replaced by upper back and shoulder issues caused by the poor posture exhibited by chronic texters. That same posture, if left untreated, can progress to hyperkyphosis, a curvature of the spine that can cause a person’s back to become permanently hunched. Eye dryness, eye strain, and blurry vision also affect our eyes if we look at electronic screens too long.
If you are experiencing pain associated with phone use and the prevention methods mentioned before are not adequately helping, there are nutritional supplements that may help. Glucosamine, chondroitin, MSM, and collagen are well-known joint/bone supplements but there are also some you may not know, such as white willow bark, curcumin, bromelain, devil’s claw, and boswellia.
-Glucosamine, chondroitin, and methylsulfonylmethane (MSM) are naturally occurring compounds that have been used by millions for joint and cartilage damage
-Collagen helps provide the building blocks for and prevents degradation of cartilage
-White willow bark has anti-inflammatory properties and relieves pain
-Curcumin prevents degradation of and restores cartilage
-Bromelain decreases pain and swelling and stimulates the rapid growth of tendon cells
-Devil’s claw has anti-inflammatory properties and relieves joint pain
-Boswellia has anti-inflammatory properties and increases range of motion
Using any one of these supplements is the first step toward overcoming your back pain. Using multiple supplements, although taking a bunch of pills is not ideal, vastly improves the chances of your back pain going away. Most people cannot afford to buy 7 to 10 supplements or would be willing to take 7 to 10 pills a day so Vitaback was made.
Vitaback is the first daily vitamin supplement for neck and back pain. Vitaback is a nutritional booster designed to help increase mobility, flexibility, and vertebral disc lubrication and to decrease pain. It is the only supplement with all of these ingredients although other supplements may contain 2 or 3 of the ingredients.
Vitaback contains: glucosamine, collagen, boswellia, bromelain, magnesium, hyaluronic acid, curcumin, chondroitin, L-proline, L-glutamine, manganese, white willow bark, devil’s claw, MSM, vitamin C, buckwheat, zinc, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and silica.
Zen Nutrients is dedicated to providing the highest quality supplements that can be found on the planet. By combining industry knowledge with simplistic ingredients, their products speak for themselves and stand alone in the continuing epic of natural and healthy treatment.
These supplements are GMO-Free, Gluten-Free, expertly designed in a certified cGMP facility, and crafted in the USA.
Written by Zen Project Manager, Matthew Banther