Transcript:
Interviewer: Chiropractor Dr. Seth Pearl knows all about it. Joins us to discuss how you can stay connected while also staying happy and healthy. We can’t stop, especially the next generation, from texting almost in an addictive fashion. So what do we do, and what damage is being done?
Dr. Pearl: You’re right. I mean, texting is not going away. Our handheld devices are getting smaller and smaller. We have to crouch more and more to get that text out.
Interviewer: So you’re seeing a rounding of the shoulders from people in their 20’s.
Dr. Pearl: For the last seven, eight years, I’m seeing an increased incidence of younger and younger kids with back issues that my 60 and 70-year-old patients would have.
Interviewer: This is incredible. And by the way, it shows a real need for chiropractors, is my personal opinion. You did a test on me a little earlier. I found it bothersome. You made me take off my coat. What were you looking at?
Dr. Pearl: I was looking at the forward head posture. Okay? What we’re looking for here is, how far your head is over your shoulders.
Interviewer: Right.
Dr. Pearl: Every degree you go, you add more and more weight to the head. With you, I hate to say this, it had about 57 pounds of weight coming from your head over your body.
Interviewer: So when I’m texting – you asked me to text naturally – that’s how I would do it. Fifty-five pounds is leaning over?
Dr. Pearl: It’s about four quarts of [inaudible 00:01:11].
Interviewer: Wow. So how does that effect me?
Dr. Pearl: It’s going to effect you in a couple of ways. It’s going to decrease something called your lordotic curve, which is the curve of your neck. That curve is going to flatten out. We call it a hypolordotic curve. That’s going to cause this text neck, this jutting forward of the neck.
Interviewer: You also say it effects mood, and I’ve heard this before. Because think about it, when you’re depressed, you kind of hunch over, you’re kind of down. And guess what else you do? When you text, you’re hunched over and down. You can be sending signals to your body that you’re depressed, you’re down, and you have a negative attitude.
Dr. Pearl: That’s exactly right. You’ve never seen anyone like this, saying, “Life is amazing.”
Interviewer: I’ve never.
Dr. Pearl: Conversely, you’ve never seen anyone like this, saying, “I hate myself.”
Interviewer: No.
Dr. Pearl: Standing upright, getting those shoulders back. Also, physiologically changes the oxygen levels inside the body too. You’re not getting a lot of oxygen like this.
Interviewer: All right. So now you brought your chair here, you have your device over there. So what are you going to do for me now?
Dr. Pearl: So, what this device is, this is from Sigma instruments. What this does is, this measures the fixation level of the neck. Remember I said that spine straightens out, we’re able to actually see how fixated or stuck that neck is.
Interviewer: Should we take a look?
Dr. Pearl: Yeah.
Interviewer: How much is this going to cost me?
Dr. Pearl: It’s very simple. This is basically 21st Century chiropractic. We don’t wrack and crack anymore. We don’t guess, we test. So put your face right down there, and all we do here is take very gentle readings of the cervical spine.
Man: It doesn’t look good.
Dr. Pearl: My diagnosis does not look good for you. Anyway. What we’re looking at here are basically the bar levels. The farther out the bar levels…
Interviewer: So the Republicans didn’t like my neck. The Democrats and the Independents are a little bit on the [inaudible 00:02:55]. Go ahead.
Dr. Pearl: So what we’re looking at here is, you’re looking good at the top of the spine. You know why? That’s use for yeses and no’s. The rest of it is fixated and tight. So, what we can do now, if you want, if we have the time, is do a very gentle adjustment on that neck, open up those nerves, let that body get the information it needs from the brain to the body, and you’re good to go for the rest of the day.
Interviewer: We’re going to wait for the break because we’re out of time.
Dr. Pearl. You got it.
Interviewer: That was very educational. You can’t stop them, but you can fix them, and there’s some exercises you can do. Great job. Thanks so much.
Dr: Pearl. Thank you.
Interviewer: Ten minutes ago, we just did this with Dr. Pearl, where he looked at how I text. He says when he looked at my weight and my height, he says I have 55 pounds leaning over, which means the curve of my spine is leaving. And he says, “You need to be adjusted,” in his case, if you go to a chiropractor, to try to get that curve back to fight against it. Not only does text neck hurt you physically, but also emotionally. If you are hunched over, you start getting rounded shoulders, something you usually see in 60, 70, and 80 year olds. You can see it in 20 year olds.
Female: Well, you can also get depressed just from sitting like this. Your stature, the way you sit, your posture, effects your mood and effects the way you treat people around you, and then in turn, the way they treat you.
Male: I feel it. And that maybe explains why you’ve been a shell of your former selves.
Interviewer: That’s right. I’ve been a little depressed.
Male: We’re hoping to break [inaudible 00:04:15] and set you straight.
Interviewer: Well, we all get 1,200 emails every 90 minutes. So we’re always answering constantly.
Male: It’s true.
Interviewer: I wish I did have a Blackberry. Then I could work the keyboard. But evidently, my thumbs are too large for this generation.
Female: 13.4 pounds. That is one big head.
Interviewer: Right. Thank you very much. All right, so you might have text neck, so make the adjustments.
