How to Fix Tech Neck with Chiropractic Care? Causes, Symptoms & Prevention Tips

Do you feel an unusual ache with a stiff neck after scrolling for hours while leaning forward towards your phone, tablet or laptop?

If the ache is a frequent phenomenon, then you might have developed tech neck or text neck, which happens when you lean forward and remain seated in an incorrect neck posture for hours, staring at your electronic gadget. That’s when chiropractic care might help you to manage stiff neck-related issues.

When it comes to tech neck and chiropractic care, a survey report claims that 94% of patients suffering from tech neck have found a 30% pain reduction due to FHP forward head posture. Nearly 11 million Canadians living with musculoskeletal issues have found that chiropractic treatment for neck pain has helped them to reduce stiff neck syndromes.

However, chiropractic care may not guarantee tech neck prevention permanently, as the ache may return in future, as it varies depending on factors like work-life balance, seating posture, health history, etc.

If you find your neck pain impacting your work, sleep and work-life balance, you may prefer to connect with professional chiropractic care in Brampton for further consultation.

Key Takeaways from the Article

• Defining Tech Neck and how prolonged screen exposure leads to tech neck? Causing discomfort?
• Common symptoms of stiff neck, like shoulder tension and other headaches.
• How chiropractic care helps to avoid stiff neck syndrome.
• A few remedies to change static positioning
• How professional chiropractic care helps to reduce persistent text neck symptoms?

                               What Is Text Neck?

Usually, Text neck refers to a specific discomfort in your neck when your body movement is limited, and your neck retains a 60-degree rigid posture by leaning towards the laptop, mobile or tablet screen for too long. Usually, tech neck is a common pain among those who are exposed to excessive screen time while remaining seated in a sustained position.  Although it’s not a technical term to diagnose this medical condition, shifting from your regular seating posture to a different position might add relief to your neck muscles, giving relief from the pain.

By choosing chiropractic care for tech neck, you can bypass the shoulder and upper back discomfort as well. That way, chiropractic care for tech neck treatment can be helpful to avoid such issues.

    How Prolonged Screen-Hours Impact Your Neck Posture?

Prolonged screen time often forces your head towards FHP (Forward Head Posture), eventually increasing the weight on the cervical spine and often increasing the risk of spinal wear and damage. A few common impacts of prolonged screen exposure leading to chronic tech neck conditions-

• Leaning forward towards the screen deploys additional force on your neck muscles, thereby forcing it to move towards a forward position.
• Retaining the same posture for long hours can be tiresome and strain your neck muscles.
• Tilting your head down or forward towards a smartphone and laptop shifts your body’s gravity, ultimately forcing your neck flexors and upper back muscles to work relentlessly without changing the posture for hours.

That’s why chiropractic treatment for neck pain might be useful in these cases for healing chronic neck ache-related issues.

However, leaning forward towards your phone screen alone isn’t the only reason to damage your spine and posture, as it’s not the only reason behind such chronic pain.

– Who are Most Likely to Experience Tech Neck?

Tilting your head down from 15 – 60 degrees often increases the gravitational pressure on your cervical spine. Which means you’re adding an extra load of 20-30 lbs of force on your upper back muscles, eventually putting additional load on your neck.

According to eminent chiropractors, 84% of young students experience musculoskeletal issues each year, with severe pain specifically in the neck and upper back region.  Apart from them, the following groups of people develop tech neck symptoms for the following reasons-

• Remote office workers spend countless hours working from home by remaining seated in non-ergonomic chairs and home desks. Around 70% of them experience neck pain in the early days of their professional career.
• Women in the age group of 10-30 years who use smartphones are prone to developing musculoskeletal issues and stiff neck symptoms in different regions of their muscle mass.
• Heavy smartphone users and avid gamers seated in the wrong posture and bending towards their smartphone screen often develop rigid neck symptoms.

   What Causes Tech Neck & How to Prevent It?

Prolonged screen time often forces your head towards FHP (Forward Head Posture), eventually increasing the weight on the cervical spine and often increasing the risk of spinal wear and damage. Few common impacts of prolonged screen exposure leading to chronic tech neck conditions-

Excessive leaning forward or looking down at your specific electronic gadget

Leaning forward towards the screen deploys additional force on your neck muscles, thereby forcing it to move towards a forward position.

Poorly Set-Up Workstations

Most of the hybrid workers working from home often avoid spending on ergonomic workstation set-ups. Consequently, their remote workstations may not match the ergonomic workstations that put the laptop, desktop or smartphone at eye level. That’s another reason to consider tech neck and chiropractic care for treating neck pain from computer use.

Retaining a static posture for hours

Retaining the same posture for long hours can be tiresome and strain your neck muscles. That way, your muscles get exhausted and expect relief. By changing the posture, your neck muscles are relaxed and your seating posture changes. It helps your upper back muscles to regain a different posture.

Muscular imbalances leading to ‘tissue damage’

By slouching, your tightened front-chest muscles get space to relax for a while. It helps your ligaments and connective tissues to stretch from a static posture that you’ve retained for hours while working throughout the day. By avoiding that, your muscular imbalances may impact your tissues and can damage them too. That’s why, always maintain movement that ensures endurance for your neck and upper back muscles.

Other Factors Responsible for Stiff Neck or Tech Neck

• Emotional stress and anxiety causing muscular tension
• Poor sleep quality reduces the threshold for pain tolerance level of your body
• Dehydration causing your spinal discs to dry up, as they are dependent on water to maintain their height, cushioning and shock-absorbing ability.
• A sedentary lifestyle that excludes activity, ultimately weakening your physique from the core, ultimately making your spine too weak to maintain a normal posture.
• Carrying heavy backpacks, briefcases, or single shoulder bags also defies the rules of your basic body mechanics and anatomy as well.

These factors are also responsible for acute tech neck conditions.

What Are the Major Common Symptoms of Tech Neck Condition?

Physical strains and repetitive stress on the cervical spine and the adjacent muscles are common symptoms of Forward Head Posture (FHP). By retaining the same posture for hours, you may sense some of these aches causing physical strain and repetitive stress on your cervical spine.

• Dull neck pain and upper back pain in the mid-to-lower neck and between the shoulder blades.
• Reduced mobility due to a rigid stiffness around the neck, tightening your neck and shoulders, making it hard to turn whenever you try to look sideways or look upward.
• An unfamiliar ache generating from the base of your skull, ultimately spreading across the
• Chronic tension in your upper trapezius causing shoulder tightness and pectoral muscle tightness from sustained forward head posture.
• Muscle spasms and soreness within knotted, tender trigger points in the upper back and neck.

Apart from these, unwanted numbness and tingling sensations leading to weakness in the arms, hands, and fingers are some of the common tech neck symptoms often noticed in the human body.

  Is it Possible to Get Shoulder Pain or Headache Due to Tech Neck?

Yes, there’s a high chance of experiencing chronic shoulder pain or headaches due to tech neck. That’s because increased weight load may tilt your head forward to a steep angle while looking at a phone or laptop. It increases the strain on your cervical spine up to 50 or 60 pounds.

Apart from that, there are a few other ways shoulder pain and prolonged headaches can be triggered by a stiff neck.

• Excessive strain on the shoulder and upper back across the upper trapezius and levator scapulae works overtime to support your posture, ultimately leading to muscle fatigue.
• Prolonged forward posture leads to irritation in the joint’s ligaments and nerves at the top of the neck.

When Does Neck Pain Turn Serious?

 Usually, neck pain turns serious when the neck-related discomfort is left without prior diagnosis for too long. If you’re willing to prefer chiropractic treatment for neck pain, before consulting a spine specialist for tech neck prevention, then you might withstand the pain from getting worse in future. If the pain does not return, you can always expect a text-neck-free, healthy lifestyle in future.

         Can Chiropractic Care Treat Neck Pain?

Although chiropractic treatment may not offer the medical remedies offered by a cervical spine specialist, if your body endures chiropractic treatment, it can heal tech neck. However, it depends on the response of your body to the treatment. If you’re suffering from one such neck pain for a long time, at first you may reach out to a chiropractor for neck mobility exercises and other remedies. If you find the same pain recurring, then you might think of an alternative option.

    Can Chiropractic Care Rectify FHP (Forward Head Posture)?

Chiropractors treat upper back and neck pain with various manual manipulations and other pain-reduction remedies to restore your neck condition. They include cervical spine adjustments, soft tissue therapy, cervical traction, etc. Apart from that, they also help you to perform various exercises to improve your daily habits by replacing the previous ones. This can further help you to increase your screen time while working for hours seated at your laptop, desktop or tablet.

Can Chiropractic Care Manage Tech Neck?

Honestly, there’s no guarantee that chiropractic care is the ultimate remedy to reduce back pain. However, with hands-on tech neck treatment, exercise and changes to your workstation, regular activities may reduce the risk of tech neck syndrome. If you’re planning for tech neck treatment, you may consult a professional for chiropractic care in Brampton to heal your prolonged neck pain-related issues.

– What happens During a Chiropractic Assessment for Tech Neck?

Case History and Lifestyle Evaluation –

At first, the chiropractor conducts a session that covers symptom Discussion and your lifestyle to understand your daily habits. Once you share the exact location of the pain, its intensity and frequency, and its stiffness.  Once the pain is identified, they review your daily routine, including the hours you spend on your electronic gadgets.

Postural analysis Conduction –

Once your visual alignment is checked, the chiropractor observes your body from the front and back. They check whether your ears are drifted forward or not when compared to your shoulders. They also look for any unusual hump-like curve, if there is one, on your rounded shoulders. It helps them to analyze the exact root cause of your pain.

ROM Testing –

Popularly known as the Range of Motion Testing Method, this one is guided to move your head and neck through standard planes.  The purpose of this test is to evaluate your movement and detect if you feel any pain while doing it or not. Then the chiropractor notes down the direction of your pain or muscle tightness, if there’s any, which limits your mobility.

Personalized Treatment Program –

Apart from these, the chiropractor conducts muscle and tissue checks and joint mobility checks as well, to detect whether it has the possibility to get worse or not. This personalized plan also includes an orthopedic and neurological testing process to let you know whether the pain can be reduced for real with chiropractic care or not. It includes compression and tension tests along with nerve functionality tests and diagnostic imaging (if needed, depending upon the severity of the pain).

 How to Prevent Tech Neck? – Proven Tips Shared

Often you spend countless hours bending forward over your electronic gadget while working every day. By continuing to work like this, your spinal muscles connected to your neck develop tech neck syndrome.

However, with a little bit of consciousness, you can always avoid stiff neck conditioning while staring at your smartphone, tablet or laptop screen.  Some of those effective remedies to prevent tech neck from phone use or while using a computer have been discussed below-

• Place the Device at Your Eye Level – Most of the e-gadget users don’t understand the logic behind placing the device parallel to their eye level. By holding your smartphone higher and closer to eye level, you can reduce the risk of tech neck from computer use. By pulling the chin straight towards your spine, you create a double chin that resets forward, which is equal to your head posture.
• Allow your Shoulders to Move Back and forward – Try to take a short break of 10-15 minutes from your busy schedule and move your shoulders front and back. Scapular retractions squeeze your shoulder blades back and down, and align your neck over your Practice this for 5-10 minutes every day.

• Reset your seating posture – Use ergonomic chairs with a height adjustment lever to look at any object that’s 20 feet away. Take short breaks to relax your eye muscles for 20 seconds and reset your seating posture each time while taking a break.

• Include a few exercises in your daily routine – Perform various exercises and activities like chin tucks, shoulder blade setting, and upper back mobility to improve your tolerance while working on a If possible, stretch your chest, keeping it tight and your front shoulder muscles. It helps you to pull your upper body into a forward posture, reducing the risk of developing neck pain.

• Consult a Professional for Chiropractic Remedies – Try to get in touch with a professional for an individual chiropractic assessment plan. There are various approaches and neck posture exercises to treat text-neck with chiropractic care. It includes –

• Proper assessment to review your symptoms, daily screen time, and work setup.
• Evaluate health history and previous injuries, if any and conduct a physical assessment to test your neck mobility.
• Test muscle function to detect neurological symptoms.

You may also ask the chiropractor to conduct a complete assessment if the pain recurs frequently. You may also reach out to your chiropractor for further neck pain exercises and stretches for speedy recovery.

    Chiropractic Care for Tech Neck in Brampton

While looking for chiropractic care for text neck prevention, always ask the concerned chiropractor about the reason behind the origin of the pain. That will eventually help you to assess the pain with transparency.  If possible, Google the possible reasons behind it. If you can’t, feel free to reach out to Physiotherapy First, offering a wide range of chiropractic services that address the exact symptoms of your pain. It also includes the daily habits and records of your health history in the account.

If you’re looking for appropriate hands-on care, practical advice on specific body movements or restrictions on certain habits, activities or lifestyle you’ve adopted earlier, our consultants can always help you to fix it.

Learn more about different services related to chiropractic care in Brampton, CA.