Did you know … that looking down at your cell phone throughout the day is hazardous to your health? But the reason it’s a health hazard is NOT what you might think. While cell phone usage does take a physical and mental toll on you, and carries many health hazards from radiation exposure, there is a a more insidious health risk that is just as dangerous and poses a bigger threat because hardly anyone is aware that it causes countless ailments that plague our daily existence.
In today’s digital age, people are constantly looking down at their cell phones, tablets or laptops several hours a day — or doing tasks that require them to bend their neck forward and face down for long periods of time. Little do they know that this seemingly harmless habit is having a detrimental effect on their health.
How does this happen?
The neck muscles, ligaments and neck vertebrae (specifically, the C1-C2 vertebrae) are designed to support the head in a neutral position. When the neck is bent forward for a prolonged period of time — such as when you spend hours looking down at your cell phone — the weight of the head increases and the neck muscles lose their ability to support it, leading to instability of the cervical spine.
Consider this: The average head weighs between 10 to 12 pounds. The C1-C2 neck vertebrae that support the head only weigh two ounces. So the head is sitting on vertebrae that weigh only two ounces. Even the ligaments that keep the neck vertebrae together are very small structures that are only 3 to 10 millimeters thick.
When you’re constantly looking down at your cell phone, the structure of the neck loses its natural curve and becomes reversed. This is a condition called cervical instability.
How prevalent is cervical instability? According to Dr. Ross Hauser of Caring Medical in Fort Myers, Florida, anyone who looks down at their cell phone or work in front of a computer for hours each day most likely have cervical instability and more often than not, vagus nerve injury as well. This condition doesn’t correct itself — it only gets worse with time, especially if one is in the habit of looking down for hours on end.
While the condition of cervical instability might seem relatively harmless, it does usher in the more dreadful health threat that is injury to the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve of the autonomic nervous system, which extends from the brainstem (medulla oblongata) down into the abdomen. This nerve is connected to, and supplies nerve impulses to the heart, lungs, brain, larynx, stomach, esophagus, pharynx and tongue. It regulates critical body functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, breathing, and digestion.
When the vagus nerve is injured — and this happens to a majority of frequent cell phone users due to cervical instability — it hampers the nerve supply to numerous parts of the body and brings about a host of ailments such as unexplained anxiety, depression, digestive issues, fatigue, blurry vision, a burning sensation in the body, difficulty urinating, neck, shoulder and body pain, headaches, loss of balance, dizziness, difficulty breathing, suppression of body’s production of stomach acid, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Vagus nerve injury also impairs voice quality (which is particularly important to professional singers and public speakers), and causes impaired hearing, sound sensitivity, and ringing in the ears.
And if you think the aforementioned list of potential disorders is already alarming enough, it gets worse. The vagus nerve is involved in almost every chronic disease in existence, such as heart disease, arrhythmia, mental fog, dizziness, vertigo, chronic digestive problems, leaky gut, gastroparesis, speech problems, swallowing difficulties. When you follow the neurology of a chronic disease, you’ll find that it leads directly to the vagus nerve. Therefore, any injury to the vagus nerve could potentially open up a Pandora’s box of health issues, some of which are serious and life-threatening.
Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take when using your cell phone to prevent or halt the progression of cervical instability which leads to vagus nerve injury.
1. Hands-free Eye-Level Cell Phone Usage: Since it’s not always possible to decrease frequent use of one’s cell phone, then the next best thing is to use a cell phone stand that hangs on your neck. This device has a flexible gooseneck brace that is easy to bend and can be adjusted to position your cell phone at eye level so that your head is kept in a neutral position, your spine is in the correct alignment, and more importantly, you’re not looking down at your cell phone.
2. Good Neck Posture Throughout the Day: When using your cell phone, tablet or laptop computer, be sure to keep your neck upright and your chin parallel to the floor. Since this is not always easy to do because the act of looking down habit is a hard habit to break, consider using a foldable neck brace, which is a plastic adjustable device that keeps your chin from tipping forward to help keep the head in a neutral position.
Or you can use a cervical collar, which is a soft foam-like device worn around the neck to keep the neck and head in an upright position and reduce the risk of cervical instability and vagus nerve injury.
If you work at a laptop all day, consider using a laptop stand or riser in order to elevate the computer screen to eye level and avoid looking down.
3. Restoration of Vagus Nerve Function | Cervical Curve Correction | Prolotherapy – If you suspect that you have not only sustained cervical instability but have also vagus nerve injury — and you’re experiencing unexplained ailments such as those listed in the previous section — there are medical practitioners and facilities like Caring Medical that diagnose, treat, and resolve dozens of ailments caused by cervical spine instability. They offer services such as restoration of vagus nerve function, cervical curve correction and prolotherapy.
Prolotherapy is an in-office injection of dextrose, platelet-rich plasma (PRP) or stem cells that accelerate healing and enable the immune system to repair specific areas of the body. It is the only treatment in the world that can tighten chronically stretched-out ligaments of the neck, thereby correcting cervical instability and reversing vagus nerve injury. You can easily find top-rated prolotherapy practitioners in your area by going to Prolotherapists.com.