Spending many hours using your cell phone to scroll through the news feed on Facebook , Instagram or chatting on Messenger or WhatsApp can cause health problems such as pain in the neck and eyes, humpback and even tendonitis in the thumb.
This can happen because when the person is in the same position for a long time, the muscles become weaker and the movements repeated throughout the day, every day, wear the ligaments, fascias and tendons, leading to the appearance of inflammation and pain.
But sleeping with the cell phone beside the bed is also not good because it emits a small amount of radiation, continuously, which, despite not causing any serious illness, can disrupt rest and reduce the quality of sleep. Understand why you should not use your cell phone at night.
How to protect yourself
Maintaining good posture while using the cell phone is very important because the tendency is for the person to keep their head tilted forward and down and, with that, the weight of the head goes from 5 kg to up to 27 kg, which is too much to the cervical spine. To be able to hold the head in such an inclined position, the body needs to adjust and that is why the hunchback appears and the pain in the neck as well.
The best way to avoid neck and eye pain, hunchback or tendonitis in the thumb is to decrease the use of cell phones, but some other strategies that can help are:
- Hold the phone with both hands and take advantage of the screen rotation to write messages using at least 2 thumbs; Avoid using the phone for more than 20 consecutive minutes; Keep the phone screen close to the height of your face, as if it were take a selfie ; Avoid leaning your face over the phone and ensuring that the screen is in the same direction as your eyes; Avoid resting your phone on your shoulder to speak while writing; Avoid crossing your legs to support your tablet or cell phone in your lap, because this will have if you lower your head to see the screen; if you use your cell phone at night, you must install or connect an application that changes the color emitted by the device, to a yellowish or orange tone, which does not impair vision and even favors the sleep; At bedtime, you should leave your phone at a minimum distance of 50 cm from your body.
In addition, it is also important to vary the movements throughout the day and to stretch through circular movements with the neck, to relieve discomfort in the cervical spine. See some examples of exercises that relieve neck and back pain, which you can always do before sleeping in the following video:
Regular exercise is also a good way to strengthen your back muscles, promoting good body posture. There is no better exercise than another, as long as it is well oriented and that the person likes to practice, so that it becomes a habit.
