Hunching, hunching, hunching...

ORIGINAL POSTING DATE February 23, 2010

First at our desks, or on the phone, back in the days when phones sat only on our desks or our kitchen walls.  Watching television, at our computers, on our video games, driving our cars.  All this slouching and hunching.

Now we have handhelds for reading/messaging/browsing, and we’re hunched over them in total fascination as if we’re searching inside an oyster, one which is stuck fast to a countertop, for a very, very small pearl.  Since our handhelds are really quite lightweight, we could conceivably just hold them up a little higher.  However, we don’t.  So here comes another generation of individuals with chronic head, neck, and shoulder pain.  One which just doesn’t understand where this pain is coming from.  In a way, it’s a revenue generator and I shouldn’t complain.  But that’s an awfully savage way to look at it.

Here, while you are reading this do me a favor… straighten up and sit right.  I’m doing it while I’m writing this, honest, I swear!  Sit as though your back is up against a wall and your tailbone, shoulder blades, and back of your head are touching the wall.  (If you can’t imagine how that feels, go stand with your back up against a wall that way, and your feet about 6 to 10 inches forward from the wall.)  Lift your chest, get some space between your ribs and hips, and get some height between your ears and shoulders.

Admit it, that feels better.

The more often you catch yourself hunched over, the more you’ll correct yourself.  The more you correct yourself, the better your posture will be and the less slouch-inflicted head/neck/shoulder pain you will experience.  You could avoid upper-cross-syndrome, and lower-cross-syndrome, and other kinds of postural or eventual structural spinal instability. You could breathe better and feel better and move better, so much better, if you just straighten up.

Don’t let gravity, or your phone, get you down.