We seem to be running an experiment on ourselves as a society. The unprecedented use of 'smart' phones is putting us into compromised body positions for prolonged periods of time.
I'm sure you have seen it in others, you may not have felt it in yourself. Head jutting forward, shoulders and upper back rounded forward and inwards
The nearest pre smartphone position I can think of is the classic prayer position, but actually this is very stable in comparison.
Smartphones seem to have a way of dragging us in that not only prolongs their use (the stats on the amount of use my young people is terrifying) but has us holding a posture that is causing discomfort or pain whilst making no attempt to change it. We seem to be almost trying to dive into the devise, whilst loosing our body awareness.
There is lots of speculation about the effects of this posture over the long term, but as I said, its an experiment so we can't be sure. In the short term the effects are dramatic, shoulder, neck and back pain, dowagers hump and postural Kyphosis for starters.
So what's to be done; firstly try to be more aware of doing the damage, keep a bit of yourself back to be aware of how you are feeling in your body. Listen to the messages that are coming to you from your body, its easy to think, just one more game/look at Facebook/blog post and then I'll move, you then find you have been it 'that' position for an hour.
Once the damage has been done; Get a regular Shiatsu treatment from me; but also move the body in the opposite directions, often. A structured approach can be found here, by Ekhart Yoga. You could hang from a door frame, stretch upward and back or downward dog are all good... this one below was shown to me by my friend Mick, hold the chest on the sternum and tilt the head back; this stretches the SCM (which tend to shorten with Tech Neck) and feels lovely
