SHOULDER AND NECK PAIN SOLUTIONS

The Computer Hunch: Shoulder and Neck Pain Solutions
By Gretchen Reynolds
O, The Oprah Magazine | From the April 2010 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine

Have long hours spent slumped over your computer turned you into the office hunchback? Here's how to work out the kinks.

Amy Markham was once an endurance athlete, running marathons and cycling long distances. Then, at the age of 37, she took a new job as director of admissions at a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts. Her new sport was hunching over her keyboard. At first the pain barely registered, but the tension in her neck and shoulders eventually became so severe that it was sometimes impossible to turn her head, shrug on clothes, or even type. While Markham's pain was extreme, the circumstances that led to it are not uncommon.

As many as 63 percent of all office workers will suffer from neck pain sometime this year, with women at particular risk, according to a recent comprehensive review of neck pain studies. Poor posture is partly to blame; the ever-increasing dependence on computers doesn't help, either. Happily, some relatively simple exercises can help.

5 moves that reduce neck pain and increase neck strength

A study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that the five moves below dramatically reduced neck pain and increased neck strength in female office workers. For the best results, complete at least three sessions a week. (A session consists of three sets of three of the moves listed here; for each set, repeat the exercise ten to 12 times.)

1. Shoulder Shrug
Stand, holding a pair of two-pound dumbbells at your sides. Keeping your neck straight, slowly lift up your shoulders toward your ears and lower them again. Repeat.

2. One-Arm Row
With a dumbbell in your left hand, stand at the left side of a knee-high workout bench. Set your right knee on the bench and bend at the waist, setting your right palm on the front of the bench for balance. Your left arm should be straight, palm facing in, with the weight hanging toward the ground. Slowly pull up the weight toward your chest, then gently lower and repeat. Switch sides and repeat with the opposite arm.

3. Upright Row
Stand holding a weight in each hand, resting the weights on your thighs, palms facing your body. Bending at the elbows, slowly lift up the dumbbells to chest height (your elbows should point slightly up, not straight out to either side). Keep the weights close to your body and your neck relaxed and straight. Lower gently and repeat.

4. Reverse Fly
Reposition your bench so it's at a 45-degree angle to the floor. With a weight in each hand, straddle the seat and press your chest against the raised end of the bench. Extend your arms toward the floor, palms facing in. Keeping your elbows slightly bent, extend the weights out to your sides until your arms are parallel to the floor. Slowly lower and repeat.

5. Shoulder Abduction
Stand holding the weights at your sides, pressed against your thighs. With your elbows slightly bent, extend the weights out to your sides until your arms are parallel to the floor, palms down. Keep your neck straight and relaxed. In a smooth motion, lower and repeat.

Create a perfect workstation for mind and body.

MY THOUGHTS

something to plan for. i have the perennial neck and back problems because of working 8-12 hours a day. meaning,i have the computer hunch syndrome. massage works short term. you start working and in a day or two the pain's back. hope this exercises help.

Want to Avoid Workplace stressand be more productive? Stop Working

How to Be Productive: Stop Working
By Margaret Heffernan | August 10, 2010

Industrial companies put a lot of effort into “asset integrity” — which really just means protecting critical plants and machinery from damage and wear and tear. At companies like BP, it’s clearly more of an aspiration than a reality, but anyone trained in a manufacturing environment learns that asset integrity is a top priority. But what about service industries — companies where the only assets are the brains of the people who work there? Shouldn’t they worry about asset integrity, too? Astonishingly, most of them don’t. Instead, financial services, consulting, the law and even the medical profession perpetuate working hours where all-nighters are heroic, driving with jet lag is the norm and anyone who actually has lunch risks becoming lunch.

But, they argue, we’re in the midst of an economic downturn, the worst recession in our lifetimes. Shouldn’t we all be working as hard as we can? Who has the luxury of time? What do you mean weekends aren’t for working?

Well, for the last 100 years, every productivity study in every industry has come to the same conclusion: after about 40 hours in a week, the quality of your work starts to degrade. You make mistakes. That’s why working 60 hours may not save you time or money: you’ll spend too much of that time fixing the mistakes you shouldn’t have made in the meantime. That’s why software companies that limit work to 35 hours a week need to employ fewer QA engineers: there isn’t as much mess to clean up.

In a knowledge economy, where thinking and creativity are the raw materials from which products and profit flow, brains are assets. They need to be cherished, nurtured and protected, not abused. Leaders need to take seriously a century’s evidence that 1) overwork doesn’t make us productive, it makes us stupid, 2) looking away from a problem is often the best way to solve it, and 3) burnout is what happens when people are asked to work in ways that obliterate all other parts of their lives.

Also: we need to hammer the last nail into the coffin of multi-tasking. No, you can’t safely drive and hold conference calls, nor can you text while driving. And checking emails while in meetings means you may as well not be there. What modern businesses need isn’t distracted Blackberry addicts but human beings who haven’t forgotten the gifts of focus, concentration and mindfulness.

When the cognitive scientist Dan Simons looked at the vast mountain of evidence that demonstrates the futility of multitasking, he was inevitably asked whether there were anything we could do to enlarge the capacity of our minds. The answer was an emphatic “no.” There are hard limits to what our brains will do, and no amount of Baby Mozarts or Brain Trainers will alter that. Practice, Simons says, will improve specific skills but not general abilities. Doing Sudoko will make you better at Sudoko; it won’t raise your GMAT scores.

Is there anything that truly enhances cognition? Yes, says Simons: exercise. Experiments by his colleague Arthur Kramer showed that walking for a few hours a week led to large improvements on cognitive tasks. Stretching and toning exercises had no cognitive benefits, but aerobic exercise, which increases blood flow to the brain, did. Seniors who walked for just 45 minutes a day for three days a week showed better preservation of their brains in MRI scans. Exercise, Simons concludes, improves cognition broadly by increasing the fitness of your brain.

Care about asset integrity? Get out of the office and go for a walk. And make sure the people who work for you do, too.

MY THOUGHTS

the short but brisk walking helps. i walk around the block sometimes if i need to work well into the night. clears the brain, relaxes the muscles and makes me more productive.