The effects of technology on health and how to fix them

In this day and age people spend most of their time on their mobile devices hence spending very little time taking care of their health and getting quality sleep. Technology can have a large impact on the health of users,  not only that but the use of technology can also have negative repercussions on physical health causing hearing loss, screen strain and hyper vigilance among other risks.

Research has shown that phones are responsible for the increase in the number of people suffering from neck and back problems. This is a result of the time spent leaning over the phone screen which puts spinal disks under pressure. Bending the head over a phone, laptop or any other device strains the neck muscles. And if done many times, the body eventually adopts to that hunched position.

On average, a human head weighs around 12lbs. For every inch that the head is bent forward, an extra 10lbs is added. So if you bend your head 3 inches, you add an alarming 42lbs to your neck. The only way to fix this is by being conscious of keeping your body in a neutral position every time. This means that you must keep your ears at an equal distance from the shoulders and your chin should neither be down or up. You can achieve this by positioning the device that you are using approximately one arm length away.

Technology also deprives one of sleep. You may assume that since you have one of the best types of mattresses from thebest-mattress.org, a high quality mattress selling company that guarantees good sleep, you will sleep well. But that is not the case if you have your mobile phone near you. Having your phone close to you makes you hyper vigilant.

Being hyper vigilant is being tense, on guard or alert. Subconsciously, you will be expecting a text or a call which implies that your sleep will be lighter. The light emitted by the phone will also affect your sleep. The light interferes with your body’s natural rhythm and this lowers the production of a sleep hormone referred to as melatonin. Lack of this hormone fools the body and makes you believe that you do not need to sleep. This problem can be fixed by using F.lux. F.lux is an app which makes the screen color look like the current time in the day. This helps your body know when it is time to go to bed. Also, you can try switching off all devices one hour before going to bed.

People suffer from texting tendonitis a strain caused by too much scrolling and texting. To avoid this you can bend your arm ninety degrees after and even before texting. You can make a tense fist along with your entire arm and hold it for some time after which you relax it. You should repeat this three times and then stretch your wrist forward and backward while holding each position for some few seconds.

Tunes tinnitus is another condition caused by the excessive use of technology. Listening to a sound which is over 89 dB(A) for more than 5 hours continuously for a week damages hearing completely after some time. To combat this, the 60:60 rule needs to be applied. The rule states that you should listen to music at 60% of the MP3 player’s maximum volume for a maximum of 60 minutes in a day. You can also get yourself noise cancelling headphones. With headphones, you will not have to increase the volume and override the terrible background noise.

Another technology health risk is screen strain. People spend so many hours a week staring at computer screens. This prolonged use of computers can lead to computer vision syndrome. Symptoms include temporary short sightedness, double vision and eye strain. This problem can be fixed by taking regular screen breaks or by wearing glasses. Also, ensure to blink regularly. When you focus on the screen, your reflexes slow down. Blinking becomes less and the production of tears is lowered. This causes uncomfortable dry eyes.

Staff Writer