What your smartphone does to your head and neck

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Where would we be without our smartphones? Life these days is hard to imagine without a phone to plan the day, find information we need right this second, keep up with hobbies or just to pass the time. Thousands of apps help us keep on top of things effortlessly. News, music, chats, games: we have it all at our fingertips. No wonder almost everyone has a smartphone and makes generous use of it.

Constant use causes problems

Like anything else in life, too much of a good thing is bad. Even your phone. The press was all over it at the time: in June 2020, Yamato near Tokyo became Japan’s first city to ban use of phones while walking. How come? Well, it seems staring into your phone while out in public makes you less aware of traffic, resulting in an alarming increase in accidents, and Yamato city officials hoped the ban would “raise awareness of the dangers”.

Good for a giggle – but while glancing at your phone on the go may not get you immediately run over by a delivery truck, continuous use certainly poses risks. The German Society for Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery (DGOU for short) has something to say about the effects of staring down with your head and neck flexed. And it’s enough to make anyone sit up and think, no matter how fit.

“Text neck”

The DGOU experts use the term “text neck” to describe the upper spine overuse syndrome associated with "looking down at a display for hours with the head in an unnatural position”.

Neck pain is not always due to excessive smartphone use, and may play a significant role in the headache process. For many headache sufferers, neck pain signals that an attack is around the corner. The relationship between neck pain, headaches, and migraines has been studied extensively. Recent research shows that neck pain heralds migraine and tension-type headache in many patients.

Neck pain is a symptom

Evidence indicates that headaches often involve a disruption of the body's pain regulation system. You could compare our natural pain regulation system to the brakes of a car. Touching the pedal controls the car’s speed – but for that to succeed, there needs to be enough brake fluid in the reservoir to control the brake pads. If fluid levels are too low, the regulation system fails and the speed cannot be controlled.

In the human brain, chemical messengers such as serotonin act like the brake fluid in a car. If your organism is exposed to extraordinary but short-lived pressures, it may result in excessive consumption of those chemical messengers for a limited period. These pressures may include psychological or physical stress, such as a strain on the neck muscles due to sitting hunched over at a desk. Your pain regulation system is kept busy dealing with the pain information from the muscles and uses up more of the neurotransmitters in your brain. Your supply of neurotransmitters that usually filter out pain dry up. The filters open up and pain information rushes unfiltered into your brain. Your aching neck is the first thing you notice, although strictly speaking the problem originates in your brain.

Is it preventable?

Yes, it is. Muscles that are exercised regularly are less vulnerable to tension and overload of any kind, so plenty of exercise is a great way to prevent the pain. The best plan is to make exercise a routine part of your student life.

If time is short because you have a paper due or exam coming up, brief indoor exercise breaks are a whole lot better than nothing. Stand up for a minute, move your head and shoulders back and forth, walk a few steps around the room, have a good yawn. Do this often to stop tension from building up. The idea is to get as many muscles and joints working as possible. Another good way to prevent tension, neck pain and headaches is to place your mobile devices and monitors up higher, or try to lower just your eyes rather than your head and neck.