Text Neck from Poor Posture

Drawing showing strain on neck if leaning forward in neck


AT drawings - strain on neck

Holding your head down to look at a mobile when texting can put a real strain on the body. A recent study states that texting can harm your health.  Poor posture is one of the main causes.

Text Pain, Neck Pain

Our heads are quite heavy, around 4-5kg. This is the weight of 4-5 litres of water:

AT drawings - weight of head in water

Better Posture

This is fine when the head is in balance. But tip the head forward and start multiplying those bottles of water.

Thus good posture and head balance is important. This is what the Alexander Technique is all about. Imagine a point between your ears. This is where the head neck joint is.

Drawing of Natural Head Balance restored by the Alexander Technique

Forehead Forward

Next, consider that the forehead faces forward and doesn’t tilt upward. We don’t need to fix it the head into place but need to think for it to be in balance.

Drawing of Head Neck Balance for correct posture

Phone to eyes, not head to phone

Now let’s bring the phone into the picture. Instead of tilting the head down, we can bring the phone upwards towards the eyes. This leaves the head neck balance alone and takes the strain off the neck, back and shoulders.

Alexander Technique Lessons

Any Alexander Technique practitioner can help you learn the skill of ‘mind talking to muscle’. We help you to understand what natural body use is and how to achieve it for yourself. We have a very gentle touch which guides the body how to let go more, even when it may have spent years, or even decades, holding on for dear life.

Call now to book an appointment and start taking care of your spine.

A Simple Body Scan

One simple way to calm mind and body is to do a body scan. You can start from your head or your feet and can think this through in greater or lesser detail, depending on how much time you have.  It’s a simple way to tune into the body at any time during the day.  It’s also a great way to help settle down for a good night’s sleep as Chris Holt’s insomnia body scan describes. Here is a simple scan that you can run through; do adapt it for your own body:

  • Feet: Become aware of your feet and include the sense of space between your toes
  • Ankles: Think of olive oil trickling through your ankles
  • Lower legs: Allow your calf muscles to relax, and the muscles at the side of your shins
  • Knees: Our knees have fronts, backs and sides. Time for some more olive oil or WD40 to trickle through
  • Upper legs: Tune into the front, back and sides of your thighs and release any tension
  • Pelvis & hip joints: Think of some undoing in the ball and socket of your hip joint, untighten any tension in your buttock muscles
  • Front of torso: Let your belly and solar plexus relax, think of opening across the belly and chest
  • Back of torso: Think of the back lengthening and widening, releasing tension and tightness
  • Arms: Allow the arms to flow out from the torso, thinking of them being long and lithe. Soften in the biceps and forearms
  • Wrists and hands: Think of the wrists as being wide, the palms as being open and the fingers and thumbs being long
  • Collar bones and shoulder blades: These have a natural width. If you’re upright, think of these as floating on top of the ribs
  • Neck: Release any tension in your neck, imagine space between the bones and remember the neck has a front, back and sides
  • Head: Visualise space at the head neck joint. Allow the head to be poised and balanced on the neck – still but not stiff
  • Face: Soften and widen between the brows and bridge of the nose, soften the lips and think of space between the back teeth. Relax your tongue towards the base of your mouth, rather than pressing against the roof of the mouth.

See if you’re able to continue with this awareness and relaxation as you continue with your day.

Creative Writing, Body Mindfulness and Calm

Drawing of pencil writing letters

Drawing of pencil writing letters

A new discovery has been the use of creative writing to help observe my body and its posture (or ‘use’). I recently went on a great workshop called Creative Writing and Yoga with Philip Cowell.  Normally I have a complete writing block, hence the lack of regular posts on my blog, and this causes me some angst. But the writing workshop has freed things up a lot.

Every day, I now write four pages in a notebook. These are called Morning Pages – possibly familiar to people who have read The Artist’s Way. It’s stream of consciousness writing with no rules and no need for internal editing. It has given me a sense of calm as it’s essentially an opportunity for mindfulness by decluttering one’s thoughts.

Yesterday, I was writing away and my thoughts were drawn to my body – how I was sitting and writing. I started documenting this. I noticed that I was sat slightly off the chair as I hadn’t moved some things under the table and so was sitting around these. My head was resting in my left hand. Bit by bit, I wrote these observations down, with a writer’s eye. It was useful not to change anything immediately so that I could explore the details.

Then I put my ‘Alexander hat’ on. And I shifted the things from under the table and brought both feet on the floor. I relaxed my right shoulder, thought up through my spine and head and I let my left hand softly help keep the pages of my book open. Much more comfortable.

It has been a revelation to use writing to bring a greater body awareness.

One exercise in the Creative Writing for Yoga workshop happened after we’d done some gentle yoga movements. We then had to write a letter to a part of our body. A few people read their pieces out. They were so different. Some were funny, others moving, all were observing things from a more unusual perspective. Someone wrote to their thumb, another to their belly, I corresponded with my left hip.

So these are my offerings:

  • Write Morning Pages – 3 or 4 pages, any time of day, anything that’s in your mind
  • If you are aware of your body as you write, note it down in detail. Tensions and all. Then become more thoughtful and note that down. This doesn’t have to be in your Morning Pages.
  • Do some gentle movements and then write a short letter to part of your body

Housework – the dreaded hoovering

Hoovering can be uncomfortable and can make your back ache.  What can happen is that you stand fairly still and overuse the arms – pushing and pulling with your arms, making loads of effort.  This leads to bending forward, often putting strain on the lower back.  Here are some ideas to experiment with:

  1. Make the handle long enough so that you don’t need to bend as you hoover
  2. As you hoover, step or rock forward and back – a bit like doing a dance – and the hoover handle will just move with you
  3. Reduce your effort and let the hoover do the work.  Make the suction right for the surface.  If it’s too high, you have to make an effort to move the brush; if it’s too low, then you have to go over the surface more times.

Hoovering is my least favourite chore.  And that’s worth noting because if you dread something, then you tend to tighten up before even starting it.  So I have a little chat with myself to think that it might not be that bad.  And I sometimes plug myself into some music to dance as I hoover.  It’s so much better that way.

Children’s Posture at the Computer

child at laptop - poor posture as chair too low

I was visiting a friend at the weekend and their 9 year old was using the computer for his homework.  Whilst this looked a lot more fun than homework was in my day, it might not be fun in the long term (or even short term) for his back.

He was sitting at the kitchen table.  His feet didn’t reach the floor.  He was working at a laptop with a small screen so was having to dip his head to read the screen.  He was only using one hand to type and was twisted as he reached over the keyboard.  Because of this, his right shoulder was higher than the left, his back and neck were twisting and he was coming off his right sitting bone a bit.

Kids use computers for homework and computer games, browsing and drawing.  It is a disaster in waiting if we don’t address their posture – backache, neck pain, shoulder pain, tight hips are all waiting to leap at a potentially young age.  There are also implications for eyesight problems too if they stare at a screen for too long, keeping a limited focal distance

So, what can be done to help things?  Here are a few ideas:

  1. Awareness, awareness, awareness.   Parents, carers, teachers and young people all need to know that using our body well is as important as using the computer well.  Think posture first.
  2. Chair Height – shoulders.   The chair seat needs to be high enough so the forearms are parallel to the keyboard without raising the shoulders.  If the forearms are sloping upwards, the chair is too low.  Use books or a cushion to raise the seat height if it’s not an adjustable chair.
  3. Chair Height – legs.   If their feet don’t reach the ground or aren’t flat on the floor, put something under their feet.  Either some books/blocks or a small stool if they are really little.  Their thighs should be parallel to the floor.
  4. Screen Height.   Ideally, the top of the screen should be level with the eyes.  A separate keyboard is helpful for laptops so the laptop or netbook can be propped up on something to raise the screen height.
  5. Watch for twisting or slumping.   There’s a lot more to this than meets the eye which is where a trained Alexander Technique practitioner can advise.  But at least start to look at their posture and notice what is going on.  Also keep an eye on your own posture as children mimic adults.  I find that parents who bring their children to me to look at their posture are often slumped in the chair during our appointment!
  6. Don’t “Sit Up Straight!”   Following the above point, sitting up straight makes people hitch up and be stiff.  They often arch the lower back and push the chin up too far.  Instead, see if they can wriggle onto their sitting bones.  More gentle and may be more effective.

If adults and children are sharing a computer, then these adjustments needed to be made for each person.  It’s tempting to think that we’re only going to use the computer for a bit but we do tend to get a bit sucked in and then find we’re on it for longer than intended.

I’m happy to work with children.  They often only need a few sessions.  I do prefer that the parent/carer also has lessons with me.  It helps the adult have an experience and greater understanding of what we’re working with and will help them with their child as they can share ideas and insights.