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Protect Health Computer:How to Protect Your Health in the Computer EraBy
Dr. Ben Kim
Let’s begin your quest to stay healthy and fit in the computer era by addressing your foundation. Unless you have a health condition that makes it difficult to sit for a long period of time, your foundation while working on the computer is likely your bum. Your bum, known more technically as your pelvis, serves as a base for your spinal column, which in turn serves as the protective housing for your nervous system, which in turn serves as the primary highway of information traffic that allows you to do and feel everything that you do while you are alive. If your pelvis is consistently faced with asymmetrical or heavy downward pressure, it can begin to experience inflammation in one or more of the joint surfaces, ligaments and muscles that surround it. Put another way, if you sit in an awkward position for long enough, you will inevitably experience an injury to your pelvis. The most obvious cause of pelvic inflammation is sitting on an uneven surface. And this happens most frequently when a person sits with a wallet or some other object in one back pocket. As some health practitioners know, a chief cause of chronic pelvic or lower back pain in truck drivers is sitting for hours at a time with a thick wallet in one back pocket. Your pelvis is designed to evenly distribute its workload to both of your bum cheeks. The sitting bone that you can feel at the bottom of each bum cheek while you are seated is called your ischial tuberosity. And if one ischial tuberosity has to consistently take on its own workload plus part of the workload that its partner is responsible for, it is only a matter of time before inflammation occurs and the natural biomechanical design and function of your pelvis goes awry. Next Up: Your Lower Back Just above your pelvis sits your lower back, also called your lumbar spinal region. This is where most painful disc protrusions and other chronic lower back problems tend to occur. The spinal bones that house and protect your spinal cord are separated at each level by round discs of cartilage that are designed to act as shock absorbers. If these discs experience too much stress – over time or even as a one-time major injury – they can begin to “slip” backward into your spinal canal, where they can put pressure on your spinal cord or spinal nerves. Once in contact with your spinal cord or spinal nerves, a slipped disc almost always translates to serious discomfort. As you have probably guessed, sitting for long periods of time can, over the long term, put enough pressure on your lumbar discs to cause chronic lower back pain. Actually, sitting for a living can put damaging pressure on a number of structures in your lower back; a slipped disc is the most common and easily visualized lower back problem that can occur – this is why we are using it as our prime example in this section. Clearly, it may not be practical for you to find an alternative to sitting while you are working in front of your computer or doing other desk work. Over the years, some of the people that I have treated for severe, chronic lower back conditions have had to alter their work stations to enable them to stand while they worked, but you and most others without an existing lower back problem may not have to resort to this scenario. Here are some tips that you can follow to minimize any negative impact that sitting for long periods of time may have on your lower back:
Protect Your Upper Back and Shoulders Two of the most common problems that you may encounter over a long career that involves sitting at a desk and using a computer are upper back tightness and shoulder pain. In the absence of an overt injury or a degenerative process like arthritis, both are often related to allowing your shoulders and chest to slouch forward while you go about your daily activities. When you slouch forward, your “shawl” muscles – those that line the top of your upper back – pull on the spinal bones that you can feel at the back of your neck where it meets your upper back. If you have ever spent several hours doing desk work without taking a break, you have probably experienced a sharp, achy sensation in this region. If you continue to put unnecessary stress on your upper back in this fashion, over time, the natural curve of the spinal bones in this region can change in a way that can increase your risk of suffering from degenerative spinal arthritis. Slouching forward decreases a critical space that is located at the front of each of your shoulders, just under your collar bones. This space is called your subacromial space, and needs to be maintained in order to allow thick bundles of nerves and blood vessels to travel from your neck down to your arms and hands. When chronic slouching decreases your subacromial space, your nerves and/or your blood vessels can become encroached. Depending on which structures are compressed, you may experience any number of uncomfortable symptoms, the most common of which are:
An important part of the plan to prevent chronic shoulder and upper back problems is just to be aware that slouching forward on a regular basis can be troublesome. Strive to make it a habit to remind yourself to keep your shoulders back, as though you are about to try to squeeze a pencil with your shoulder blades. If need be, post a highly visible sticky note somewhere on your desk that can prompt you to develop this habit. Another measure that you can take to prevent shoulder and upper back problems is to spend a few minutes each day to strengthen the muscles that line your upper back and the rear portions of your shoulders. If you have elastic tubing or make regular visits to a gym, you can do rowing exercises that cause you to stick your chest out as you pull back with your arms and squeeze your shoulder blades together. You can accomplish the same thing by keeping your legs pressed against one another and almost fully straightening them on the ground while sitting straight up, wrapping a bed sheet or long towel around the soles of your feet, and pulling on them with your hands to simulate a backward row. Just holding this position for 10 seconds at a time while you squeeze your shoulder blades together is an effective way to train your shoulders and upper back to maintain good posture. Another way to train your shoulders and upper back to stay back and prevent slouching is to do arm circles for a minute or two each day. Arm circles entail raising your arms straight out from your sides until they are parallel with the floor, then turning them in slow circles while keeping your shoulder blades squeezed toward one another. You can do ten circles going forward, then ten circles going backward. The keys are to go slow, keep your circles small (less than 12 inches in diameter), and keep your shoulder blades contracted toward one another throughout the exercise. Yet another step you can take to prevent shoulder and upper back problems is to spend a few minutes each day lying on your back, with one or a few pillows under your mid back, so that your head and your bum fall off the upper and lower edges of the pillow(s). In this position, allow your arms to fall back comfortably onto the surface that you are lying on, so that you feel a good stretch throughout your chest muscles. The pillows serve to push your spine forward, which helps to offset the tendency for your spine to push backward while sitting at a desk for most of the day. You can accomplish the same stretch by lying back on a flexible exercise ball for a couple of minutes each day. Take Care of Your Hands and Wrists Even
if you minimize your chances of experiencing hand and wrist problems that stem
from slouching forward and decreasing your subacromial spaces, you may still develop
hand and wrist pain if you do not pay proper attention to how you use your keyboard. Here are two simple measures that you can take to prevent carpal tunnel syndrome:
Protect Your Neck Unnecessary strain in your neck region may eventually cause you to experience tension headaches. If you use your thumbs to feel the base of the back of your head where it meets up with the top of your neck, you will find a relatively deep groove on each side. Out of these grooves emerge two large nerves, called your suboccipital nerves. Your suboccipital nerves travel up the back of your head, wrap around your ears, and supply the structures in and around your temples and eyes. Tense neck muscles can put pressure on your suboccipital muscles, which can create pain anywhere along the path of these nerves. Tense neck muscles can also alter the way that your jaw joints move. Your jaw joints – also called your temporo-mandibular joints are two of the most delicate joints in your entire body, and once damaged, may cause jaw pain and chewing problems for the rest of your life. Taking good care of your neck is quite simple to do. First, you should arrange your desk, computer, and phone so that your neck does not have to maintain a stressful position for more than a few seconds at a time. Here are four key suggestions to help you do this:
The second way to keep your neck region healthy is to spend a minute or two each day stretching it for 5-10 seconds in each the following directions:
Keep in mind that with each of these stretches, you should maintain steady, even breathing throughout each stretch. Never stretch to a point where you feel pain. If you feel pain, decrease the intensity or hold time of your stretch. The third way to protect your neck from injury is to maintain healthy tone and strength in all of the muscle groups that surround your neck. You can easily accomplish this by using one or both of your hands to resist each of the six stretches that are outlined above for 5-10 seconds. For example, to strengthen the muscles that line the front of your neck, place the palms of your hands against your forehead and attempt to bring your chin down to your chest. Resist forward flexion of your neck in this fashion for 5-10 seconds, then move on to resist your head from looking up toward the sky to strengthen the muscles that line the back of your neck. If you feel pain during any of these strengthening exercises, decrease the intensity and/or duration with which you contract your neck muscles. Protect Your Eyesight Hundreds of millions of people from all over the globe spend many hours each day working in front of a computer. And it is estimated that over 50 percent of these people experience some form of eye discomfort that is directly related to their computer work. Some of the most common forms of computer-related eye strain are:
To optimally protect your eyesight for the near and long term, consider heeding the following recommendations:
That
concludes part one of this series on how to protect your health in the computer
era. Next week, we'll look at several nutritional considerations that can help
to protect your eyes, muscles, nervous system, and all other tissues mentioned
in this article as you go from internet browser to spreadsheet, from spreadsheet
to Microsoft Word, and from Microsoft Word to locating family member's and friend's
homes on Google Earth.
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