Exercises For Relieving 'Text Neck'

That strain you may be feeling along the back of your neck, possibly extending to your shoulders, could very well be the result of too much time spent looking down at your smartphone.

“Text neck” is the informal name that physicians have given this chronic condition born of the digital age. Ronald Tolchin, D.O., medical director of Baptist Center for Spine Care, part of Baptist Health Neuroscience Center, demonstrates stretching exercises that anyone can do to alleviate the symptoms of neck pain.

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[Transcript]

[Baptist Health South Florida]

[Exercises that help alleviate text neck]
Dr. Ronald Tolchin:
I'm asked to give advice for people with text neck or individuals with neck pain. The first thing I do is try to change some of the bad habits and work on their posture. So an ideal position would be to bring this up to eye level, and then I often give them exercises to supplement that. So some of the exercises I would give them would be to take their hand and bring their head to the side and get a little stretch in the muscles in the side of the neck. So we'll do the one side and then we'll do the other side. And they'll feel a nice tightness right there, and they can also bring their arm down at the same time. And it gets a little more stretched to the upper shoulder girdle. And if they want to hold on to a piece of furniture while they do that, they can use their arm to hold onto their furniture and get a little more stretch to the shoulder.
[Doctor demonstrating how to heal text neck]
Dr. Ronald Tolchin:
And then we want to have them look up and then we want to have them do the same thing in rotation to the right and to the left. And the other thing we would have them do is to roll their shoulders backwards like this, and then reverse it forwards. So we want to work on not just the neck, but the shoulders and even the upper back. Again, their whole bodies are in a forward bend position. So we want to start to get them more extended like that. So we'd use the upper back like that. And the other thing we could have them do is just to side bend their upper back like this and like this. So we have them do that several times a day.
Dr. Ronald Tolchin:
Those contractions enough would be helpful to reduce the pain, start improving the strength and also get the stretch that we need. So those are some things. Now, if they had persistent pain beyond that, then I would usually recruit the assistance of a physical therapist.
[Baptist Health South Florida]

[End Trancsript]

[MJ-kxyq]

This is the most useful video I’ve found for this, I thought it would not work, I’ve always had really bad posture even tho I try my best to sit up straight and this actually made it extremely easy for me

[edlitzinger]

I'm guilty of bending my head and neck forward when working on my laptop as well as when texting...It got to the point that I was actually losing sleep due to neck pain...Tried various stretches, but after completing the ones recommended by this Doctor, my pain is definitely resolving...its gradual, and I know it wont disappear overnight, but I actually was able to sleep last night... Thank you so much Dr. Tolchin for posting this video on

[Bella-kepr]

I usually lie down when I'm on the phone

[mold]

I get tech neck from watching yt and etc

[halodelsanto]

Thank you, Dr. Tolchin! We rely so much on our phones, but they really do encourage bad posture. This is helpful.

[JordanCantFight]

I be getting tech neck from my job bruh lol

[kathym]

Perfect short video. Thank you. I'm just coming out of a tech neck attack. I made the big mistake of applying heat for the first two days. If I applied cold the story would have been different. The one thing I found was using CAMPHOR was like magic to calm things down. Also I raised my computer up and work at eye level. Now onto these exercises. Note: There is a transcript in the drop down box.

[UrduTimeline]

Thanks u so much dr .i have facing such a kind of problem..thank u so much to guide

[Nsaf_UKR]

Okay actually do these stretches, not like the cool kid before baskettball but as the pro right before the last game of his life.
Im not old but my neck is destroyed doing these stretches made me feel extremely and instantly bette

[kittzart]

I got pain cuz i looked down for 8 hours yesterday for working on an art project.

[YoooRico]

This kinda worked know my semi pain went towards my back instead of my neck

[mohammeda.]

My phone screen time is 8 hours a day! Is it too much?

[janirk]

I can across an awesome collection of videos that will help you at Neck Mender Blueprint

[allanzopro]

My neck and shoulder hurts me really so much, and it takes a longtime what can i do please

[itsmepluto]

When ever I put my head back it hurts really bad. Is this text neck?

[millamil]

Its really hard..the pain like your bone is broke..help me

[sierrabrown]

is this something that is very dangerous that can harm u because i’m very scared that this will be serious

[alientv]

I have text neck syndrome for over a year 😢😢

[Khalidsvt]

The only solution is to put the phone down

[jurgonaufalut]

*9-1-1 I'm having text neck!*



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