Life in front of a screen was already fairly common as Americans spent about 11 hours a day with their faces glued to a monitor, smartphone, or tablet. Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, screen life has increased exponentially, and even children are tied to screens for long periods thanks to remote learning. As a result, tech neck is becoming more prevalent in Americans of all ages. Thankfully, we can relieve the neck pain through acupuncture.
At Family Wellness Acupuncture, our team of expertly trained and certified acupuncturists has a unique understanding of neck pain and how to resolve problems like tech neck through acupuncture.
Here’s a look at how tech neck develops and what we can do to help you find relief for your neck discomfort.
Though the phrase “tech neck” is short and sweet, the problem typically involves far more than your neck, including your shoulders and upper back between your shoulder blades.
If you look around at people who are using screens (or at how you use your own), you’ll notice that most people have their heads down, shoulders hunched forward, and their upper back curved outward.
This poor posture not only taxes your spine, which functions best in a straight, neutral position, it also causes muscle tension in your neck, shoulders, and upper back. Now take that tension and poor posture and multiply it by the hours spent in front of a screen (remember, 11 on average), and you can see why tech neck has become such a problem.
In many ways, acupuncture is ideally suited to problems like tech neck as we target specific points in your body to relieve tension and encourage the natural flow of your energy, or qi.
Called acupressure points, when we insert very small needles into these areas, we trigger your body’s natural healing response and correct any imbalances and/or inflammation that may have been brought on by tech neck.
Not only can acupuncture remedy the stress and tension in your neck, shoulders, and upper back, this technique also stimulates your endorphins, which can help suppress any pain or discomfort you may be feeling.
In most cases, we recommend a series of acupuncture treatments — typically 10-12 to relieve the pain and tension in your neck. Moving forward, you can return for “tune-ups” as there’s seemingly no end in sight to our screen usage.
Although acupuncture is great technique for relieving tech neck, we also want to give you a few tips for preventing the problem from recurring, which include:
If you’re struggling with tech neck, contact our office in Irvine, California, to get on the road to relief.
