Tech Neck and What Actually Helps

By the middle of the afternoon your neck is tight at the base of the skull, your shoulders have crept up toward your ears, and you have caught yourself rolling your head around trying to find a position that does not pull.

If someone has told you that you are ruining your neck by looking at your phone, I have something better than that for you. The research on that story is weaker than the headlines, and what your neck most likely needs is not a correction. It is attention.

You are in very good company

Neck pain is one of the most common things a working body does. The Global Burden of Disease neck pain collaborators, writing in The Lancet Rheumatology in 2024, estimated 203 million people living with neck pain in 2020. It is most common between the ages of 45 and 74, and more common in women than in men.

So whatever you have been told about making a fuss, this is not an unusual thing to be carrying, and it is taken seriously by the people who study it.

See the research

• GBD 2021 Neck Pain Collaborators, The Lancet Rheumatology, 2024, 6:e142 to e155. Globally, in 2020, neck pain affected 203 million people. Females had a higher age standardized prevalence than males, and prevalence peaked between 45 and 74 years in both sexes.

The good news nobody passes along

What the studies actually found

The link between how you hold your head and whether your neck hurts is weaker and messier than the headlines say. A study of 150 young adults published in the European Spine Journal in 2018 had physiotherapists rate texting posture directly and then looked for the connection. The authors were plain about what they found, in people aged 18 to 21.

This study did not show an association between text neck and neck pain

In adults the picture is less tidy. A 2019 review that pooled 15 studies found that adults with neck pain tend to carry their heads further forward than adults without it. Those studies measured posture and pain at the same moment, so they cannot tell you which one came first.

Read that as the relief it is. Nobody has shown that years of answering messages quietly damage your neck, and you do not need to sit like a soldier to deserve a comfortable neck.

See the research

• Damasceno and colleagues, European Spine Journal, 2018, 27:1249 to 1254. An observational study of 150 young adults aged 18 to 21. Neck posture while texting was judged by the participants and by physiotherapists. Neither was associated with neck pain. The quote above is word for word from the abstract.
• Mahmoud and colleagues, Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine, 2019. A review of 15 cross sectional studies. Adults with neck pain showed more forward head posture than adults without it, and forward head posture was correlated with neck pain in adults and older adults. No association was found with most neck pain measures in adolescents.
• Sheikhhoseini and colleagues, Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics, 2018. Seven randomized trials, 627 people. Corrective exercise changed head posture and gave a moderate improvement in neck pain, and the authors write that the precise relationship between the two remains to be established.

What I think is going on instead

My own reading, for what it is worth, is that time and stillness matter far more than geometry. A neck held in one position for three hours complains. A neck that moves through its range across the day tends not to. That is what I notice rather than a research finding, and it is a much kinder thing to work with than a posture you can never quite hold.

What an hour can genuinely do for you

There is one trial on this I like, because it asked the question people actually have, which is how much. A team led by Karen Sherman enrolled 228 adults with long standing neck pain and published the results in the Annals of Family Medicine in 2014. Thirty minute sessions did not separate from the comparison group. Sixty minute sessions given two and three times a week produced meaningful improvement in both how the neck felt and how well it worked.

The honest footnote is that it is one modest trial, and the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health still describes the wider picture for neck pain as uncertain. I would rather hand you that than oversell. What I will say without hesitating is that an hour spent properly on one guarded area does more than twenty minutes spread thin, and that is the shape of what that trial found.

See the research

• Sherman and colleagues, Annals of Family Medicine, March 2014, 12(2):112 to 120. 228 people with chronic nonspecific neck pain, randomized to 30 minute visits 2 or 3 times weekly, 60 minute visits 1, 2 or 3 times weekly, or a 4 week wait list. Thirty minute visits were not significantly better than the wait list. Sixty minute visits 2 and 3 times weekly raised the chance of meaningful improvement in neck function and in pain.
• NCCIH, Massage Therapy for Health: What the Science Says. The page concludes that no recommendations for practice can be made at this time because the effectiveness of massage for neck pain remains uncertain.

Beyond the trials, I would rather let a client say it. This is Nico L. on my Google page.

clearly focused on actually addressing the source of the tension rather than just giving you a basic massage

That is the job, and an hour is what it takes.

What happens when you come in

I will ask when it started, what makes it worse, and what you were doing in the hours before the worst of it. That last question is the one most people have never been asked, and it is usually where something useful turns up.

Most people describe this as a neck problem and most of the work ends up across the upper back and the shoulders, because that is usually where the pulling comes from. I will still put my hands on the exact spot you point at, always, before anything else. You have been living with it and it deserves acknowledging before it gets explained.

That work is Head and Neck Relief most of the time, and The Hands when one area has been stubborn for months and wants the whole hour. I will ask what you would prefer rather than deciding for you, and if you want more time spent on the shoulders until they actually feel better before I move on, say so and that is what we will do.

You do not have to arrive with it figured out, and you do not need it to be bad before it is worth an hour. Bringing a tight neck to someone who will take the time with it is reason enough.

The part that belongs to a doctor

One thing I would rather say than leave out. New numbness, tingling or weakness running down an arm is not a massage question, and neither is neck pain that arrives with a fall or an accident. Tell your physician first. Once that has been looked at, if what remains is muscular tension, that part is mine and it is well worth working. There is more on where I draw that line in the post on when massage is not the answer.

If you want to come in

Tell me what you are hoping for and we will plan the hour around it. Both sessions run the same flat rate, 100 dollars for sixty minutes, 150 for ninety and 200 for two hours. If you are weighing lighter against deeper work, there is more in the post on Swedish and deep tissue, and the reason an hour here is a genuine full hour is in the post on the fifteen minute buffer.

For the fastest response, call or text 813.797.0406.

Frequently asked questions

Is looking at my phone damaging my neck?

Probably not in the way you have been told. In teenagers and young adults, the studies mostly did not find a link between texting posture and neck pain. In adults, people with neck pain do tend to hold their heads further forward, but nobody has shown which causes which. Your neck being tight is real. The guilt attached to it is optional.

Will fixing my posture fix my neck?

Not on its own, as far as the research shows. In a review of seven trials, posture exercises helped neck pain moderately, and the authors still say the link between the two remains to be established. Moving often matters more than sitting perfectly, and that is a far easier thing to actually do.

How long does a session need to be?

The one dosing trial found sixty minutes did something and thirty did not. For a neck that has been tight for months I would book ninety if you can, and sixty if you cannot.

How often should I come in?

My own view, after years of this, is that monthly suits most people who have no particular complaint. Something is better than nothing, and I would far rather see you once a month for a year than three times in one month and never again.

Can I do anything between sessions?

Change position more often than you think you need to, and take the neck through its range a few times during a long stretch at a desk. Before you leave I will show you what I noticed in your particular shoulders, which tends to be more useful than general advice.

What if the pain goes down my arm?

Tell me, and tell your doctor. New numbness, tingling or weakness in an arm needs a physician’s eyes first. The FAQ page covers the practical questions, and everything books through the online schedule.