How to Fix Text Neck

0:00 Hello, welcome back to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. And I'm not here alone. I'm here with Paul. Hey Paul, how are you? Help help me. Just kidding. Yeah. We're here today. We're going to talk about something that has happened to the world and you might or may not know about it. And that is how bodies have changed. Since COVID.

0:30 Yep. And Paul has a few things that he wants to share with you about it. Or more So what he's noticed actually being a regular teacher here in Bali and seeing lots of people from all over the world from different countries and just noticing a theme that has changed within the physical postures of the of the average human nowadays. Welcome to the Going Pro Yoga podcast. If you love yoga as much as I do, then this podcast is for you.

1:00 We talk all things yoga related for teachers in order to supplement and complement and even support after a 200 hour yoga teacher training. Or if you've never done a training before, this podcast is all about just learning more about yoga in an authentic way. Together with Paul Tioto and Byron De Marseille, we put together this podcast to provide you with a free resource to learn more about yoga.

1:22 Whether you want to share yoga or teach yoga or just practice yoga, this podcast is talking all things yoga related and we're trying to talk from the teacher's perspective and also the students perspective to make sure we get a full 360 degree angle on what yoga is all about and how it's evolved in the modern world. Welcome to our podcast.

1:39 So Paul, why don't you tell me a little bit about what you've been seeing and noticing? Yeah, yeah. So we'll preface it as, as you know, people that are coming to my classes. So that's power yoga class, these yin yin Yang yoga classes, and the yin.

1:55 But more I'm talking more about my my power yoga and the Yin Yang classes is they're already practicing yoga fairly regularly and their bodies are in pretty decent physical shape. But I'm noticing a very big difference in the thoracic and the cervical spine. So there's there's a basically the fascia and a lot of people's bodies has remolded itself to basically conform to sitting on a computer and also like sitting with your phone. So I'm really noticing that the,

2:30 the, the, the chin, a person's normal. Stands is to actually have their chin slightly tucked down and the neck to be slightly around, and they call it text neck a lot. And I'm noticing it way more, not just. I used to notice it in people's postures, like just when they were walking around and you'd see it like at restaurants. But now I'm noticing that it's even beginning to impact people's abilities to find a long lengthened open. Excuse me open spine in certain

3:02 yoga postures. So like the the one that always comes to mind is twisting Crescent. So when I have my students take Crescent pose and then they take their hands to the heart and lean forward and twist to whatever degree they twist. What has all which is now happening is the people are losing the connection from the thoracic to the cervical spine. So they're chimed against the talk and all the energy goes into like this rounded neck position. And they're not fetal position,

3:31 basically. Yes, it's like a fetal position. And I and I and I have to cue it so many times. So I'm cueing like lean your head back as my new cue for twisting Crescent because so many people are, when they're twisting, they're tucking their chin and they're rounding specifically, specifically through the neck.

3:50 So the neck is rounded in this, like. And I think it's a shape that feels more natural in people's bodies now because they spent two years. Being locked inside, not being able to move as much as they wanted to. And these are people I'm noticing that are practicing yoga regularly, that that they're doing a practice that's designed to keep your posture in great shape. And there I'm still seeing it with them. So just really noticing like I'm noticing the hips from a lot of sitting.

4:19 Like a lot of people do have type hip flexors, but this is the specific thing. Is this the effects of this text neck. The rounding. A little bit of congestion and the thoracic, but it's really about that area, the cervical spine and the just you can tell that it feels unnatural for a lot of people to have their spine just long and neutral and and yeah, so I wanted to talk to you about this and actually just share this with all the people that are listening to this podcast so that you can be aware

4:49 of it in your own body and we can talk about how to remedy it. And then those of you that are teachers, I want you to look for it in your students so you can really be specific with your cueing to help people have more awareness around the specific part of their their spine where like energetically and also physically the the it's just it's it's collapsing.

5:14 Yeah, the neck in the upper back or the thoracic area was already a bit of a challenge for people pre COVID. Because of phones and smartphones and social media and stuff like that, there's already at the start of this like Quasimodo type of posture, if you will.

5:32 The Hunchback. The Hunchback. But not to the degree in which it seems to have. What you're expressing is grown, which makes sense. You know, people. I mean, I I didn't have this experience, but I know that a lot of people did that when you were, or when the COVID was happening in lockdown was happening, you know, there wasn't anything to do.

5:51 Right. Either had nothing to do or when you were doing things, it was on a computer or a phone because that was the only you know, you're in your house or apartment. So your bodies are changed. It's like we were saying post COVID bodies, right.

6:03 As opposed to what, you know, modern bodies is what we were going to start talking about. But it's not even modern bodies. It's the effect of what, two years of a lockdown, 2 years of a certain behavior that humans needed to take on resulted in a particular posture shift globally to some level.

6:20 While. And everybody, most people were enduring a certain degree of just existential stress just because of the uncertainty and the fear and everything that was going on. So it's like you combine sitting and and and sitting in these in these rounded shapes with a ton of stress, a ton of like not feeling safe.

6:44 And those two things combined lead up to. What I'm seeing at least. Yeah, a recipe of postural disaster. Bam. Basically bam. Because I don't know how much I've talked about this on the podcast, but I'm just going to say it. And if you have questions, you can just reach out and ask me more.

7:02 But emotions get stored in the body. You probably already know that. You probably think, oh, emotions are stored in the hips. It's not just the hips. And it's not just the body. It's specifically the fascia. The fascia is what stores emotions.

7:17 And I think Paul, you mentioned it at some point a minute ago about how the fossa changes or hardens in certain areas. And this just kind of goes to say with like, you know, people who sit a lot already, like sitting at a desk, we're sitting in a in a car to commute right 8 to 10 hours a day.

7:33 If some people are sitting right, the body's going to adjust to the shape that they are most in. So if they're seated a lot, you know the hip flexors are going to be tight, for example. And the foscha will adapt to that. Like to me, I consider the foscha like this exoskeleton Venom type thing.

7:51 If you don't know who Venom is but you know who Spiderman is, everyone knows who Spiderman is. Venom is a villain or a antagonist, let's just say of Spiderman. And he he's just a normal human who gets like this little BLOB from the space that comes down and like attack attaches to his body and then he has this like exoskeleton that can form and move and adjust to his needs. Based off of the environment in the situation. So your Fosh is kind of like a

8:16 less cooler version of that in the sense that it'll adapt and adjust to your body's needs. Yeah, just really slowly. So if you are communicating to your body that you are sitting in a position where you're flexed for a long period of time or your head is, you know, rounding forward because you're looking down at your phone or because, you know, you were locked in an apartment for that long and that's just, you know, maybe there was some. Fetal position on the bed

8:41 happening a lot, which you know, I can imagine that's usually how I feel when I'm stressed is I just kind of want to curl up right curled up feeling. If that was prolonged over a period of time, six months to two years, let's just say the fossa is going to adapt in a similar but slightly different way. And that kind of creates this hardening which you spoke about. But more specifically is if there is negative emotions or there was undesired feeling

9:05 stress or tension at the time of. When that posture was being held for periods of time and length, then those emotions assuming that they weren't processed, which I would assume most of the time that they were not or they didn't have an opportunity to because survival was more of an importance at that point, then those emotions need to go somewhere. If they're not processed, they need to go somewhere. So they're going to go into the body in the most likely location relative to what's currently

9:31 happening in that moment. So if the moment is the position, body is flexed, curled, fetal position. And a lot of feelings of stress, tension are being felt and that's going to get stored in the shoulders, the neck, the upper back, which is going to not only just like solidify some of that posture, but also kind of ingrained some of the emotional tension that's in there.

9:52 So unfortunately, I mean I can, I can explain a story that happened to me whenever I was younger that was very similar because I'm about 6 foot three or what would that be 190? Centimeters. 192 centimeters, something like that.

10:10 So pretty tall. But I was also this tall when I was 13 years old, right? You stopped growing at 13. 13 or 14, I was like, boom, I hit my spot and it's funny, my brother, he's 6 foot 6 or 198. I don't even know what that is.

10:26 He's he's not asked a question, OK, when you use that tall with an unchanged or changed voice. I have no idea. I can't remember that at all. Because if you were that tall with. No, I was. My voice had to have changed. OK, for sure.

10:39 Yeah, OK. Yeah, I just wondered. Tall guy with the hey. Yeah, yeah, I was like. That would add to my trauma story. Yeah, I was like, man. So, So what I was going to say is because I was so tall at a young age and a lot of my friends and counter partners and colleagues, students, whatever you want to call them, they were not that tall.

11:02 I would have a tendency to Crouch or not even Crouch but like lean forward. You know, phones weren't around then. I would lean forward because I was trying to like get down to their level, like height wise. And I was, you know, I wanted to fit in and I wanted to belong and you know, I was this tall guy.

11:17 So I was different now and it was just like, oh, like, you know, and especially going through puberty, there's a lot of emotions and things going on. So I felt a lot of lowered self esteem. Yeah. Decreased confidence, unworthiness, sense of belonging was all being kind of challenged.

11:31 All the while holding a position in my body for I don't know how long it was. Let's just say it was a year. Yeah, right. And then after that, it was took so long for me to release a lot of that tension in my back and my neck and my shoulders that even though I knew and I could see it in the mirror, I'm like, God, this looks so not attractive. And I'm, you know, 17 year old boy, 22 year old boy or man that I'm trying to do all the things.

11:55 We're trying to stretch the front of my chest. I'm trying to strengthen the back muscles to try to like rebalance all this stuff. Which is what a lot of people will do. And you know, sometimes it helps a little bit, but it doesn't didn't really fully help, even though that's what I would suggest.

12:07 Like you can do that because you said, like there's just a couple things that you can do. Yeah. What I would say is, yeah, generally speaking, if we have this rounding forward posture where the shoulders are kind of rounding in the neck poking ahead, usually that means there's tightness in the front of the chest or the front of the body. Yeah, that can be opened up and stretched. And then to counterbalance that you would strengthen the back just from like a physics.

12:30 Perspective to help hopefully restore that posture. But this is a lot of stuff that I did even, you know, whenever I was, because I had my first Monatomy class, I was 18 and I studied exercise Physiology and I played sports.

12:43 So I was constantly trying to improve my posture because I wanted to be attractive and, you know, sexy for the ladies, you know? But what I realized eventually is that when I say eventually, I mean like, you know, in my 30s, basically that. It didn't matter how much stretching, all that stuff I did like I was doing it, but it was hitting a plateau. I actually needed to allow myself to become a more emotive and actually allow myself to feel. Of course.

13:08 And actually be more of a balanced human and without even trying. Because that emotional releases release so much tension from the spine. Exactly so much. Exactly. So, you know, not to kind of go into that too much, but yeah, a lot of it was trauma that was stuck in my.

13:25 Shoulders, neck and fascia because of feelings of whatever I felt when I was 1413 years old and you know, bringing it back to the COVID conversation, there's lots of probably a lot of unprocessed emotions. I assume that there was a good amount of people that were able to process for that stuff.

13:41 So this isn't the norm for everybody. But I would say that if you are someone or you know of someone who is dealing with that, it's not just not just necessarily about stretching and strengthening. Sometimes it's actually like. You know, thinking back of like some of the pain, sadness or the some of the stuff that was felt at that time. And, you know, either processing that or talking about it is probably the better way to talk about it with somebody. And just like allow some of

14:04 those things to come to the surface so that, yeah, that can be released and let go and then, yeah, then the posture improves. Which is kind of funny to say, but that's that's exactly what happened to me. And I mean it. The science backs it up. You know what I mean with the emotions being stored in the fossia and how the fossia can constrict. And and basically not allow movement or function or mobility to work as well as if it was, let's say, healthy Pasha. Yeah, absolutely.

14:31 Yeah. So yeah, it's it's an unfortunate notice that you've seen in these classes, but it's also good to just be aware of it and talk about it, yeah. And and again, like I I am very mindful of it, but I still catch myself, like I'll be looking at my phone and I'll be rounding my neck. And I'll even like, so you know, I do it for periods of time. I say I do a lot of business on my phone, a lot of messaging WhatsApp and sending emails.

15:00 And so I get it. I'm not acting like I'm any better than anyone. I'm just, I'm just hyper aware of it, one because of my job and then two just because I'm pretty aware of my own body. So it's not me saying that like that I have overcome this either.

15:13 It's just it's becoming more and more normal to have this to to to be looking down at your phone. Several hours a day to be sitting at a computer. Several hours a day. So just learning to be aware of it. Getting that deep tissue massage. Focusing on ways in which you could maybe stand at a desk. Like I know you have a standing desk like so you're standing when you're when you're working on your computer. And also like if you're on your phone can you lean back into a chair?

15:39 And can you hold your phone at eye level so your spine's not rounding. There's lots of ways to do it. Without just saying like, don't be on your phone, like, I understand that's not necessarily realistic either. But you know you're figuring out better, more healthy ways to live in the modern world because of the modern world is you know there's landmines everywhere. A I exactly.

16:00 Robots. Yeah, exactly. But there's landmines everywhere with food and lack of movement. And you know, the news being so negative and then texting on our phones, you know? Connected. So we got to we got to be mindful of these landmines and try not to step on them, you know, But it's not easy.

16:16 It's not easy. So it's not me saying that I have anything completely figured out myself, because I don't. No, I'm always aware of my little neck thing, which is a lot better than it was when I was younger, but still, nonetheless, I'm still a person in this world, living in the same way everyone else is, with phones and computers and stuff.

16:33 You know what he does guys, is Michael. Whenever I want to talk to him, he says. If you want to look me in the eye, you're going to have to stand on a stool. And he makes me stand on the stool. I'm just kidding. He doesn't actually do that. No, no, that's pretty funny.

16:45 You know it would have been better, right? As if I would have just made you look up at me. OK, I would actually help fix your text. Exactly. So how you fixed your text neck. Come talk to you, come in person, you come to Bali and you do one of our trainings. And every time Michael's talking, you're going to look up at him because he's so tall and then he's going to fix your tech neck.

17:02 Your text neck. Yeah, that's how that's how we do it. That's the whole point of this, this just talk to Michael. He's. Very tall. Exactly. It's funny because I'm not actually that tall. There's a lot of people talking like 6. 2636363 Yeah, my brother's the same. It's tall, but it's not, you know, not gigantic or anything. I will add a couple more things that just kind of popped in my brain.

17:24 Yeah. You know, we recently recorded a podcast about yen and I've recorded at least one episode on like Fasha and, you know, kind of building on all this stuff and when you were talking about. I forget exactly what you're talking about, but what I thought about was a position that could help. And it basically it's kind of a yoga pose but based taking like a bolster and running it alongside your back and basically either in shavasana or soup Tabata canasana and allowing your shoulders to kind

17:55 of sink on either side of the bolster and then allowing your neck to just comfortably not completely drooped but comfortably lay back on just the tip or the apex of the bolster. To basically be the opposite position of text.

18:08 Nexting, yeah. But not just staying there, but staying there and breathing, breathing, relaxing, tuning in. Cuz who knows, maybe you will feel things, maybe things will come through, or maybe you'll just tap into your nervous system and remind you that you're safe.

18:22 Yeah, and then now maybe your fossa will soften. It's almost like you're doing self yen for a specific technic text neck thing and then doing a little bit of that every once in a while. If it's something that's important to you or maybe throw it in your yoga class, you know why not? Absolutely.

18:36 I think that's a great little touch there. And then the other thing I was thinking is, is rebalancing some of the muscle structures in the neck. And this is something that I've tried and I've recommended to a few people. And that is to lay on your bed with your head similarly, just kind of like dangling but not not dangling, but just kind of resting where the back of the head is. Not on the bed.

18:56 Yeah. And then not necessarily staying there to stretch, but staying there and actually doing repetitions as you lift your head up to tuck your chin. So that you're kind of like looking up to the ceiling or like maybe towards your feet or something like that.

19:10 And now what you're doing is you're exercising the front of the neck, the flexor muscles in the front of the neck, which will help to restore some of the balance and actually allow some of the the the alignment to restore as well.

19:22 And this is usually what I see a lot of problems with people with text neck or forward neck postures is to rebalance with the strength in the front of the neck. So you can try that out. You can also do the same thing and flip over onto your belly. With your head just dangling off, or your chin just dangling off and doing some extensions, or where you lift your head back.

19:40 But that generally is not the area that needs the balance. But you could do a combination of both, and I'm assuming that with the bolster, you know when you stay consistent with that over a few weeks, Who knows? I just got to tell you that while he was doing that, I was doing some of them myself and I felt real good. Yeah, so yeah.

19:56 That's great. Restore some of that balance in the neck. Cool well. Any other final thoughts? Paul's just kind of. Nah man, I'm too busy doing this. Next though, he's. Just nodding really slowly at me, basically. Feels so good.

20:11 So yeah, give it a shot. And as always, if you have any thoughts, questions, contributions or stories that you want to share with us, let us know at podcast at goingproyoga.com. Otherwise, until next time, Paul, any final words? Nah.

20:25 OK, cool. Much love to you guys and we'll see you next week. Bye, bye. All right, before you go, let me just tell you about the Goingpro yoga.com platform. So right now you can go to goingproyoga.com and check it out for free for seven days, where you can actually learn more about yoga in the ways of alignment, queueing, sequencing, yoga, anatomy.

20:45 So that if you've done a 200 hour teacher training and you want to continue to learn, practice and grow, this platform is definitely for you. So I definitely suggest checking it out goingproyoga.com right now. You can try it out for free for seven days.