Do you feel stiff or sore at the end of a long work day? Are you experiencing a lot of tightness in your neck and shoulders?

Read ahead to find out if your sitting habits are giving you ‘computer neck’!

Computer work is at the forefront of many lives in this day and age but even so, you don’t necessarily need to be spending long periods in front of a computer to develop problems. ‘Computer neck’ encompasses the stresses that accumulate in the muscles, tendons and joints of the neck from holding your head up while you are sitting in front of your computer. This results in your spine and muscles adapting to a new, abnormal way of moving over time that later becomes habit whenever you are in the sitting position (even if you’re not using a computer!).

A big contributor to changes in posture is your work set-up. The position of your monitor, keyboard and mouse could be adding to your tension!

The average head weighs about 5-6kg but when you look down, the force that your head places on your neck increases exponentially. Did you know that the weight of your head becomes 22-23kg when you’re looking down at a 45degree angle and 19kg when it’s shifted 8cm more forward? This means that if you’re straining to see a computer screen that is too far or too low, you could be compromising good posture and putting more stress onto the joints and muscles of your neck and shoulders.

Unfortunately, most ‘computer necks’ go undetected and continue to build in tension until a sudden or wrong movement one day triggers a whole realm of symptoms to appear. In fact, many people don’t realise that the cause of their neck and shoulder pain can be associated with their time spent at their desk. After all, who doesn’t use a computer today? – it’s the norm!

However, tightness and soreness in the neck and shoulders is not normal! It is important to get checked out if you have been experiencing this before it progresses into something that is harder to fix later on!

The quicker you can recognise the origin of your tension, the sooner you can start to address the posture and alignment of your neck and trunk while you’re sitting. One way to do that is to move more throughout the day. Click on the link below to find out 3 exercises that you can do to start moving more and counter the dreaded ‘computer neck’!