Put back problems behind you
Elizabeth Kiefer explores whether devices can pull us out of our slumps.
Like many people, I spend my workday staring at screens — and, like many people, I have the back and neck issues to prove it. I often catch myself with my chin jutting forward as I lean toward my laptop — despite the fact that I’m a Pilates student and former yoga teacher.
So I spoke with two doctors about the problem and tried a few gadgets.
“We get into this stooped posture to get our faces close to the screen, which puts a lot of unnatural stress on the cervical spine,” says Dr. Kaliq Chang, a physician in pain management with Atlantic Spine Center in West Orange, N.J.
When you’re sitting in front of a computer, “you’re meant to have the weight of your head over your neck in a manner that forces your chest out and your shoulders back, which requires having a monitor close to eye level,” Chang says.
When you hunch forward, whether at your desk or looking at your phone on the couch, the
muscles in your neck and back extend while the ones in the front contract. Over time, this can create an imbalance where they pull on one another unevenly.
That can lead to microtears and swelling. “All muscles do is contract and relax. When they’re injured, all they do is contract — and that’s where we get spasms and pain,” says Charla Fischer, an orthopedic surgeon at New York University’s Langone Spine Center.
Poor posture also can become a permanent stoop, Chang says, as the muscles and ligaments grow accustomed to the position and ultimately make it more difficult for the spine to straighten.
Chang says his patients get younger every year. “More recently, I’ve had teenagers coming in, with a lot of what we call soft tissue injuries and problems, chronic pain in their neck, shoulders and mid-back.”
He attributes some of these issues to a combination of phone and laptop usage — a recipe for poor ergonomics and compromised posture. A 2013 National Institutes of Health study showed a high prevalence of musculoskeletal pain among undergraduate laptop users.
The result of all this time spent peering at screens, and the subsequent aches and pains, has led to a rise in products designed to improve posture. Though some research has been done on the usage of tech wearables to monitor posture, the longterm results remain murky, and another NIH study that looked at the efficacy of posture-correcting braces suggests that their greatest benefit could be the increased self-awareness that comes from wearing one.
Over the course of a month, I tested three devices, two of which were harnesses. The slightly bulky Marakym posture corrector fits like a backpack without the pack: Adjustable padded straps loop over your shoulders and pull your body into better alignment. Designed to “gently retrain your musculature so that you can effortlessly maintain an upright position over time,” the Marakym is meant to be worn for up to 30 minutes per day.
The Berlin & Daughter posture corrector is also a harness, but the two padded straps are fixed in length while a waist strap with Velcro connects at the front, allowing wearers to easily adjust the pull on their shoulders. It’s recommended for use for 20 minutes a day, “preferably when standing,” reads the packaging.
Both harness-style devices felt supportive, and I didn’t experience any pain-related side-effects. Though I don’t think they did much to correct my posture, knowing that I was wearing one was a material reminder to sit up straight in the first place for the prescribed period of wear.
The third device I tried, the Upright Go 2 — a “personal posture trainer” — is a wearable in the high-tech sense: You download the Upright app and then sync it to a small plastic gadget that connects to a smartphone through Bluetooth. It’s easy to put on: You stick it in the centre of your back, between your shoulders and it monitors your posture. Lean too far forward, and Upright begins to intermittently buzz. It’s mildly annoying, and that’s the point. Over time, the goal is to train yourself to maintain proper posture without the help of an external aid.
Though I could have worked on my posture gadget-free, the Upright’s annoying buzz was the tap on the shoulder I needed. Because the app tracks your slumping statistics over time, I can tell that I’ve made some progress; seeing that success quantified has the overall effect of making me stand a little taller — and sit up a little straighter.
For The Washington Post