Once started, neck pain can take weeks to clear up. It’s miserable to put up with, but the good news is there are things you can do to prevent it.
Neck pain can result from trauma — for example, you walk under a pipe without dipping down far enough, and smack the front of your hard hat. While the hard hat protects your skull (and its suspension absorbs much of the energy), you can still get a neck injury. More typically on the job, however, neck pain results from strain over time. So, identifying sources of this strain and then using simple measures to neutralize them will help you avoid that nagging, awful neck pain.
You have to keep two things in mind:
- Your neck supports a large, heavy object (yes, your brain and its container weigh as much as a bowling ball). Leverage can easily magnify the work your neck has to do; each inch works out to about another 10 lb of strain on your neck.
- Your neck is at the tail end of a big spring between your feet and your head. Any problem in that spring can transfer shock to the neck or put chronic strain on the neck.
Defense number one: Take good care of your back. Wearing good shoes is a start. But something many people neglect is to avoid muscle imbalance between the front of your body and the back of it. Pushing motions strengthen the front and lengthen (slightly weaken) the back. Pulling motions strengthen the back and lengthen (slightly weaken) the back.
Take stock of how you push and pull through the day and do some extra pulling if you need to. If you’re a gym rat who is fond of the bench press and don’t do anything for your back, you need to change your program. If you’re not a gym rat, it isn’t necessary to become one for this purpose. Just do something regularly with pulling motions so you aren’t askew from front to back.
Defense number two: Purposely engage in anti-hunching and anti-slouching. The typical engineer working on CAD drawings is hunched forward at the computer. The typical electrician installing equipment per those drawings is often hunched forward, too. In either case, the mere act of sitting compounds the hunching (upper body rounded forward) problem by adding in a good dose of slouching (lower body goes slack, belly distends, and hips rotate forward).
If you sit for much of the day, periodically stand up and spend a few seconds going through a posture check. You’ve heard the drill before: chin back, shoulders back, gut in… For your neck, the main thing is to get that chin back. In fact, you should pull it so far back that you feel tightness in the back of your neck; hold for ten seconds, then release. Repeat twice.
Defense number three: Loosen up. Neck muscles can get tight, and once one starts to spasm, you have a real problem on, well, not on your hands exactly. If you feel yourself grind your teeth or you feel a bit of tightness trying to happen on one side or the other of your neck, it’s time to stop what you are doing and loosen up your neck. Turn your head and look all the way to the left. The do the same for the right side. Next, tilt your head all the way back. Then tilt it all the way to one side and then all the way to the other. This doesn’t take long, and it prevents a world of pain. Don’t force the motions, and don’t do them quickly.
Defense number four: Lighten up. One reason people hunch over their work and then add to the problem by craning their neck is to be better able to see what they are looking at. Older people need more light to see, and this fact is often ignored by office designers and occupants. Add task lighting, but also look at boosting the ambient lighting.
Presbyopia is also related to this problem. This is a condition in which the eye of the lens loses flexibility, making it harder to focus and see nearby objects. Reading glasses are a common solution, as are prescription lenses. While lifestyle choices such as not smoking can reduce the severity of presbyopia, the condition is considered unavoidable. Do you know anyone over 50 who doesn’t wear reading glasses or prescription lenses? What about over 40? Adding light reduces the effect of presbyopia to some extent — so add that light.
With today’s LED lights, adding extra lighting doesn’t mean a big drain on your utility budget. Rechargable battery models are available; these also eliminate the need to run additional wiring. Many models charge via USB and can easily be mounted where they do the most good. You can buy one that has adjustable output, motion detection, and magnetic mounting to a screw-in clip. Put it right over a work table area or other place where reference documents will be consulted.
When people can’t see well because someone decided to “save money” rather than provide the extra lighting older workers need, mistakes will happen. That $59 fixture that Joe wanted wasn’t bought, so Joe soldiered on. He made a visual error interpreting Table 310.15(B)(1)(2), and the rework cost $8,000. Now the project manager has a real pain in the neck to deal with.
