Fit and fine: Why are young people complaining of nagging pains and aches today...
So you finish college and are lucky to land a job in a call center. In no time you are spending hours working on your computer, tied to your desk. Soon you start to notice stiffness and slight pain in one side of your neck, then your upper back/shoulder blade area starts to ache and finally you have tingling pain down your arm!
You say to yourself: ‘I am a young guy, how can I have these aches and pains?’ But, what you are experiencing is not unique or unusual. It’s called the Mouse Neck/ Shoulder and is also known as the Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
Repetitive Strain Injury or repetitive motion injury is mostly a work-related musculoskeletal disorder. It can affect muscles, tendons, joints and nerves. Generally, RSI is caused by improperly-designed workstations, incorrect posture and inadequate fitness.
Repetitive injury results in repeated tissue micro-trauma, which disrupts the normal repair process, leading to reduced blood supply, reduced activity of nerves, muscle fiber loss and even cell death. Some individuals with RSI have severe pain, others just lose strength and fine muscle control.
How a niggle becomes a literal pain in the neck!
Hours of sitting and working on badly-designed workstations, then spending leisure time peering at a mobile screen and finally sleeping on a misshapen pillow often results in a stiff neck and/or a mild headache. If ignored, this can get worse and disrupt everyday activities. Soon you will be popping painkillers to get through the day, but the pain will seem to only get worse over time.
Finding the cause
Look at your workstation. Is the computer screen at eye-level? Is your wrist bent backwards while using the mouse? Does your desk make you shrug your shoulders up? While typing, do your elbows hang free? If your answer is yes to these questions, then it’s time to make changes to your workstation.
(Ensure that your computer screen should be at eye level (Illustration : Sunil Kumar Mallik ))
Here’s a workstation checklist to keep RSI at bay:
1.The computer screen should be at eye-level.
2.Your wrist should be straight.
3.Your shoulders should not be shrugged up while sitting.
4.And finally, the chair should support the elbows.
The cure: stretch and strengthen
1.Stretch your neck by touching your chin to the chest and then look straight up at the ceiling. Turn your head left and then right. Do these stretches 10 times each.
2.Get up from your desk every half an hour, walk a few steps.
3.Strengthen your neck by pushing it backwards towards your chin with your fingers in such a way as to form a double chin. Hold this position for 10 seconds. Do this three to four times in a day.
Author bio: Kamal Singh CSCS is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist with a coaching experience of 15 years. He specialises in post rehabilitation training and has worked with some of the biggest names in the corporate and sports world. Kamal was picked by Men’s Health magazine as one of India’s Top personal trainers.
courtesy : hindustantimes.com
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US VP JD Vance says Lebanon not part of ceasefire, calls it ‘misunderstanding’
Budapest/Washington: US Vice President J D Vance has said that Lebanon was never included in the ceasefire understanding with Iran, describing the confusion as a “legitimate misunderstanding”.
Speaking to reporters before departing from Hungary, Vance said, “I think the Iranians thought that the ceasefire included Lebanon and it just didn’t. We never made that promise.”
He stressed that the United States had not included Lebanon in the scope of the ceasefire at any stage.
His remarks come amid continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, where more than 200 people were reported killed, even as ceasefire talks between Iran and the US move forward.
Vance said Israel had “offered … to check themselves a little bit in Lebanon because they want to make sure that our negotiation is successful”.
He warned that if Iran allows the situation in Lebanon to affect the negotiations, it could derail the talks.
“If Iran wants to let this negotiation fall apart in a conflict where they were getting hammered over Lebanon, which has nothing to do with them and which the United States never once said was part of the ceasefire, that’s ultimately their choice,” he said.
