Health & Wellness

Are You Growing a Phone Bone? How to Correct Your Posture in 2 Simple Steps

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Hi. Did you know that you are growing a phone bone? We have never met, but there’s a chance you are a part of the millions of people that are forcing their bodies to grow an extra bony structure at the back of their skull – due to extensive phone use.

Don’t worry. We have 2 simple solutions that will correct your posture for good.

Am I Growing a Phone Bone?

  • Do you scroll on your phone while walking, working, or watching TV?
  • Do you have neck and shoulder tightness, and even pain?
  • Are you unaware of your posture throughout your day?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you might be growing a phone bone.

There have been studies linking extensive phone use to a new bone structures on our skulls – lovingly called a “horn.” Other studies are working to disprove the direct correlation of this new bone structure to phone use.

Regardless, I think we can all admit that we have an unhealthy obsession and habit of being on our phones for more hours a day than ever before.

How Does a Phone Bone Grow and is it Bad?

When we text or scroll on our phones, we force our head to be in a forward position. Not only does our head shift forward and out of natural spine alignment, but we also look down. Both the forward and down position – for hours a day – creates strain and weakness in our neck and physical spine.

Check out exactly what is happening in your body when you spend hours a day on your phone.

2 Simple Steps to Correct Your Posture

Now that you understand that our neck extensors are overworked and our deep neck flexors are weak, it is time to correct this imbalance.

Simple Step #1: Chin Tucks

This is a simple yet powerful exercise that will make a huge difference in your posture! This Chin Tuck exercise will be broken down into three levels of difficulty.

Level 1 offers the most basic way to deeply activate your neck flexor muscles by lying on your back and pressing your head into your mat. Hold for 30 seconds— repeat 2 rounds.

If and when Level 1 feels comfortable, or you feel you can do more, try Level 2. 

This variation adds a slight lift of your head off of your mat while maintaining the chin tuck position. This exercise is actually a lot more challenging than it appears. Work your way up to 2 rounds of 30 seconds.

Finally, we have Level 3.

We suggest you work on Level 2 for at least a week or more before trying this variation. 

We want to make you are nailing the chin tuck hold before adding rotation. Try 5 slow rotations in each direction— repeat 2 rounds.

We have personally found that this single exercise has completely corrected and transformed our posture! We love to do it at the beginning of each day and have one final tip for you.

Simple Step #2: Put Down Your Phone. Or Bring it Up!

The easiest way to correct the poor posture from your constant phone use? Put down your phone. Genius.

How can you monitor your screen time?

Here are a few simple rules that you can try:

  • No phone use while walking
  • No phone use 2 hours before bed
  • Allow yourself 10-20 minute breaks throughout the day to be on your phone (rather than continuously checking your phone throughout the day). Set an alarm, so you stick to it!

We understand that our phones have become a huge part of our lives.

We use them for work, communication, fun, news and more. So, when you are using your phone, hold it up to eye level. Bringing your phone up to eye level will help prevent poor posture and any future phone bone growth!

The phone bone debate may not prove that our phones are directly linked to the actual bone growth on our skulls, but we know that our constant phone use has been less than ideal for our posture.

We hope that both the chin tuck exercises and phone use tips will allow you to improve your posture and reduce any pain or tension caused by your phone.

BoopBod

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