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Well on afternoons talking health, Okay, now let me ask you this.
How many times a day do you find yourself looking down at your phone or leaning forward while you work on a computer or a laptop device something like that. It turns out more Aussies are finding themselves with what they call technic. It's kind of a catchy name as it sounds a tech related neck problem, prolonged periods of working or looking at screens. It has affected individuals posture,
and it seems it could actually have long term effects. Now, the average person spends three hours and fifteen minutes or more on their devices. That's daily, while others who may rely on technology their work are spending up to eight hours on top of that during your standard work day. So it's the majority of the waking hours for some
people spent staring at a screen of sorts. Now, that generally affects your posture, and so the health specialists are waving some warning flags here because if people don't act now, it could have prolonged effects down the line, so much so that it's becoming the fourth leading cause of disability. Just think about that now. The question therefore, is how can we prevent these issues from turning from what is
already bad to worse. Well, let's turn to the people who know a bit more about this than we do. Helen Gents is the CEO of Musculo Scleito Health Australia. Obviously, hence the name suggests they know a bit about this, and Helen's with me on the line. Helen, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Him Michael, how are you.
I'm all right.
I try to avoid the technology as much as possible, but you can't. You can't wipe it away from your life. It's the nature of the way we live these days. So just how bad a problem is this? This technick?
What are you seeing?
Well, Michael, I think you pointed out it's the fourth leading cause of disability globally at the moment. But a really good point around muscular scletal disease, or as they call MSDS, is that back pain is actually the leading cause of disability globally, and it's also the leading cause
of early retirement globally. So muscular scaletal health is such an important thing that is often overlooked in a lot of our health literature, a lot of the health priorities that our government has, and it is so very important to your overall health because, as you noted, these sorts of things can actually have really bad long term impacts with other morbidities, and I'm talking cardiovascular diabetes. If you don't have good muscular scletal health, you can actually be in pretty big trouble.
All right, let's just unpack that then.
Okay, So someone spends eleven hours a day, let's say, bent over a laptop or a screen, and then they spend the rest of the time swiping left and right on dating apps and they're scrolling up and down on TikTok. Their whole life has spent hunched over a device. How does that then get you to a point where other comobilities become particularly problematic.
Well, it's things like when you have muscular skeletal conditions, like as you said, the newly coined tech nek. What happens is your posture is adversely affected your movement, your ability to get around and just go about your daily activities. Without pain is severely affected. And when you can't move and be active, then there are those other comorbidities that come into play. Your weight can be impacted, and when your weight is impacted, things like diabetes comes into play,
things like cardiovascular disease. So having good muscle, joint, bone health is so important to everyone. And as you said, spending you know, eleven hours most of your waiting day looking at computer screens, looking at telephones, and having that adversely affect your posture and the way you can hold yourself and your muscle, bone and joint health, it's becoming a bit of a crisis.
Michael, seems to be okay now with that established, I guess the obscusion is what do we do about it? I mean, yoga seems to stretch and flex your muscles, bones and joints. Having done it once or twice rather poorly, is that part of the answer. I've read the other day that adults are being total some are being told to embrace tummy time.
Tummy time like babies.
Get on your tummy and put your neck up in the air, that you reverse of technique.
Well, I think, I think, as you rightfully point out, prevention is really important. So limiting your tech time is a good start. But obviously a lot of us can't do that for work, for all other commitments that we have. So there are some simple things we can start to introduce with our everyday activities. Ever heard about chair based exercise, Michael, I have? Yeah. Chair based exercise is a great way
to think about moving differently. Think about your posture, think about moving your arms, your legs, all while seated, and you can do that in front of your computer. So introducing movement like that throughout your day where you have that break from looking at your screen, looking at your telephone and doing some really simple movements. And I'll do
a plug for us here, Michael. On our free YouTube channel, we have a series of great share based workouts that people can access whenever they want, from a five minute workout to a thirty minute workout, and they're a really good way during a work day to just keep yourself moving.
Okay, So che check out that YouTube link.
Okay, So I mean I wonder if we've got to look at this a little bit, be a bit more conscious like we are when we go on a flight. You know, you sit down in an economy and you're cooped up there like a battery. Hen we're told be careful of DVT, get up, move around occasionally, do those chair based exercises to get the blood pumping, the muscles moving, and that sort of drilled into you when you get
on the long haul flight. I suppose these same messages haven't been drilled into us when we go for a long haul tech session at work, followed by all the social media at home.
Exactly. You've spot on, absolutely spot on, And this is what I was saying about the fact that muscular skiletal health has to become an absolute top health priority. People need to be aware of how moving regularly, from simple things like share based exercise to walking around the block, just moving. If you don't like walking or walking is too painful, think about some warm water exercises. Get yourself off to one of the many pools around the cities
that offer warm water exercises. They're great for your muscular, skleetal health and to keep moving and just be active. And that's the fundamental part of prevention and keeping good muscle and bone and joint health.
All right, let me ask you this about from an employer point of view, because They've got.
Duty of care here.
I mean, if the role and they're paying people to do the role involves them being hunched over a screen all the time, there's a I suppose a legal duty of care that comes into play. So we're speaking of chairs earlier. Some workplaces have spent some money on quality chairs, standing desks, these sort of things for their office based teams.
But do they need to go further? Do you think?
What I would say first up is I'm not a clinician, so I'm not coming at this from a clinical perspective, but from an employer's perspective. I think anything that you introduce into the workplace you have to ensure has a solid evidence base to it. Because there are a lot of things out on the market and a lot of people touting things that don't have the qualifications that they need to have to cout solutions to muscular skeletal pain
or to ensure muscular skeletal health. I think what you need to do as an employer is make sure you are looking at the research behind what is being presented to you and making sure that is clinical and evidence based, hopefully with some significant clinical trials behind it, and that what you're implementing, your team is understanding why you're doing it, what it's going to do for their muscular scletal health,
and how it can actually make them more productive. Because you've got to admit, Michael, if staff is feeling a bit of pain during the day because they've been sitting too long, or their necks a bit because they've been looking at a screen, surely making them feel better in terms of their muscular skeletal health is going to improve their productivity as well. So it's a win win.
They can be a pain, You're quite right, but I shouldn't say I try to buy their love with cakes and things. I assume that's not the sort of rectification you had in mind.
Probably not. I'm a big fan of cakes, I can tell you. But you've raised another really good point that it's not only exercise, it's also nutrition that's really important in this and there are a lot of foods that you can actually eat that help your muscular scaletal health.
And once again another plug head to our website. We've got many recipes free once again on our website that help with lowering inflammation, help with improving bone density, all of those sorts of things and they're actually really.
Delicious donuts on that list.
No, but I might work on that for you. Might see what I can come up with.
You do something there that'd be wonderful. Helen. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Thanks mich I'll have a good afternoon.
You too, Helen Jensen said, see of musculo skeletal health Australia. It's an important issue. It's only going to become more important. We've got to deal with it. And maybe indeed you're already dealing with it in your own way. But as we go to the break, maybe we should all if we're in our chairs, we should all just do the YMCA mooves or something and just limber up a little bit. And actually, having just spoken to hell And I'm noticing there's a bit of pain in the back and whatever.
This wouldn't be the first time I've been described as a pain in the neck or the back. But anyway, it's ten to two