Don’t let work give you a pain in the neck!

If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking at a computer of sorts, or else you are very snazzy and reading this from a sparkly phone type contraption where you can view websites, download movies, and get a facial all at the dexterity of your thumbs! Anyway if the former applies to you, then we thought we’d give you a heads up on, well, keeping your head up!

Darlings, if you are sat at a computer all day, and more so, if it is a laptop (even if it bears an illuminated piece of fruit when in operation), then you are in danger of getting a royal pain in the neck!

See, us homo sapiens are rather in favour of keeping our eyes level with the horizon.  This means that when sat at a computer, despite how hunched one might be sitting, ones eyes will be looking straight ahead.  However, ones neck and the rest of ones being may have no interest in the horizon, or whatever the hell your peepers are looking at. Cue bad posture sitting at computer for hours on end.  If you look around your office now, you’ll probably see plenty of your colleagues, rounded in the shoulders, hunched over their desk, with their eyes level with the screen.  You’ll notice some spectacular hunching from the laptop users – see how the crouch to the contraption, and then look up, like a rabbit in headlights at their screen.  Bad move.  Really bad move!

What does this mean for our bodies?  Well we become tight across the chest, and all of the muscles in our mid-upper back become over-stretched (we don’t want weak backs girls…we want ‘em strong!) Then moving further up, our neck muscles become incredibly tight and over-worked, leading us to the very title of this piece…a pain in the neck!!!!

So what to do?  For those of you with desktops, SIT UP STRAIGHT and PULL THOSE SHOULDERS BACK!!  By simply sitting up straight you will start to strengthen up those back muscles.  Sure it’s a pain in the butt cos you might be used to slouching, but what would you rather? A mental pain in the butt? Or an actual pain in the neck?

Now for you laptop users, you need a little extra.  A laptop stand.  You can get them from most computer stockists for a fairly cheap price…what would you prefer? Spending between £15-£25 on a basic laptop stand, and pain-free view-age of Fit Girl? Or £50+ for a trip to the osteo or sports therapist to sort out that neck pain?  You dig?

Related posts:

1. My neck hurts when I’m doing sit ups!
2. It’s time to work your posterior