If you are on Facebook or you are chatting with someone via your phone you should know that your posture is actually forcing up 60 pounds of unnecessary stress onto your spine.
In average, people are in a slump position while they are surfing on their mobile phones between two to even four hours per day. In some cases, the number of hours spent in this position reaches 10 hours. This unpleasant body position leads to long lasting spine damages, according to a study conducted by Surgical Technology International journal.
A head of an adult person weighs around 10 to 12 pounds, and this is the same weight of the pressure onto your spine while you are sitting or standing upright with a perfect posture ( your head is not downwards and your back is not slouched). If your head is in a downward position, there is an additional weight that your spine has to support and this pressure only has a negative effect for your body.
As the study claims, leaning your head for 15 degrees forward increases the stress to 27 pounds. If you tilt your head 30 degrees, the pressure increases to 40 pounds. If you tilt for 45 degrees, the pressure becomes 49 pounds, and if you lean your head for 60 degrees, the pressure is 60 pounds. The bad news is that people usually lean their heads for 60 degrees in order to have a better focus on their mobile phones.
The chief of spine surgery at New York Spine Surgery & Rehabilitation Medicine and author of the abovementioned study, Kenneth K. Hansraj, M. D., stated that this habit has numerous negative influences. Besides causing an actual ache in your neck, it also puts additional stress onto your muscles, ligaments and tendons.
However, this should not disappoint you since a small adjustment can make a great difference. Moreover, try to be in the proper posture i.e. your shoulders and shoulder blades should be aligned and the back should be positioned neutrally. This may cause a little additional effort for your hands, since you will have to lift up your mobile phone a little bit higher; this is actually the reason why gadgets are made to weigh lesser and lesser.
Source: StethNews