After phone neck comes phone knee: excess usage associated with knee pain

After phone neck comes phone knee: excess usage associated with knee pain،

Move over, send a message to the neck, here comes the phone knee! Excessive use of your smartphone has been linked to many problems with physical and mental well-being, but a new study brings some unexpected new additions to the long list of overuse-related grievances.

It turns out that when you overuse your phone, you underuse most parts of your body, and the lack of movement causes all sorts of musculoskeletal disorders. One of them is surprise, surprise, persistent knee pain.

Knee Pain Treatment Goes Through Your Phone

According to a new study published by the NIH, spending more than four hours a day staring at your phone screen significantly increases your risk of all kinds of joint and muscle disorders, and the study authors found a clear link between excessive phone use and knee. pain. Commenting on the study, GeonodeTech expert Josh Gordon clarifies that “when we are constantly hunched over our phone, our body weight shifts, which can put extra strain on the knees“.

Needless to say, this goes for all other conditions caused by the development of osteoarthritis due to a sedentary lifestyle. Since our bodies are designed for movements that lubricate joints and keep tendons, muscles and ligaments stretched and flexible, sitting for prolonged periods interferes with these processes to the point where stress can develop into the complex construction of the knee and unbalance it. .

In addition, the tendency to be overweight due to a sedentary lifestyle combined with more than four hours of phone use per day leads to additional pressure on the joints, tendons or ligaments of the knee, whose position changes incorrectly when we We are hunched over a small phone screen. always.

According to another study from a few years ago, tilting your head down to look at a phone puts 66 pounds of pressure on the spine, leading to what are called text-related neck problems. Texting or messaging due to unnatural posture. At the time, it was thought that leaning forward changed the curvature of the entire supporting structure – from the cervical spine, through the neck and shoulder muscles, or the supporting ligaments – and the same thing seems to happen with other major weight-bearing joints in our bodies.

That's why researchers now recommend reducing phone use, a rather overlooked way to reduce your knee pain, by setting limits on screen time and replacing time otherwise spent looking at the phone with activities moderate physical activity.