Don't play with your phone while lying on your side! Netizen: I'm so scared, I won't dare to do it next time...

Did you have a good time on May Day? Some people squeezed into crowded scenic spots, while others chose to stay at home for five days. Once you stay in the room, you can't help lying on the bed and browsing your phone. Do you prefer to lie on your side or on your back to play with your phone?

Recently, the topic #Never lie on your side to play with your phone# has become a hot topic on Weibo. Some netizens said that after lying on their side to play with their phone, their myopia has worsened and they have even developed strabismus.

Source: Weibo

So, does lying on your side and playing with your phone really increase your eyesight? And will this posture cause other harm?

1

Playing with your phone while lying on your side affects your vision

Lying sideways while playing with a mobile phone is a bad habit. If you keep this posture for a long time, it is easy to compress the blood vessels of the eye close to the pillow, resulting in insufficient blood supply. After a long time, it is easy to have a "swelling feeling", and there may be short-term image overlap and ciliary muscle spasm . At the same time, when lying sideways while playing with a mobile phone, our left and right eyes are not used evenly. In the long run, it will lead to eye fatigue, resulting in a temporary decrease in unilateral vision and deviation in vision between the left and right eyes.

Source: pixabay

When we lie down and play with our mobile phones, the screen is very close to our eyes, which increases the adjustment strength of the eye muscles and puts more pressure on them, which can easily lead to various discomfort symptoms, such as Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS), with common symptoms of blurred vision, dry eyes and eye fatigue.

In addition, bad eye habits cause the eyes to adjust inward for a long time, and failure of eye adjustment may cause sudden strabismus. If you have myopia and often use your eyes at high intensity and close distance, you must pay attention to preventing acute strabismus. Last year, Shenzhen reported that a 24-year-old woman's eyes suddenly became crooked while she was lying on her side playing with her mobile phone, and was eventually diagnosed with acute common esotropia.

Source: pixabay

In fact, whether you play with your phone while lying on your side or not, as long as it lasts too long, it will cause eye fatigue and visual damage, especially for teenagers, and will increase myopia. However, compared with other postures, playing with your phone while lying on your side is more likely to cause harm to your cervical spine.

2

The risk of injury to the shoulder, neck and waist when playing with mobile phone while lying on your side

When we lie flat on the bed, the spine is under the least pressure, about 25%, while when we lie on our side, the contact area between the shoulders, back and waist and the bed becomes smaller. Under the gravity of the organs, the spine will bend and rotate downward, and the force will increase significantly, reaching about 75%. Lying on your side and playing with your phone for a long time will put the spine under high pressure, which may cause the spinal nucleus pulposus to bulge to one side, leading to scoliosis and lumbar disc herniation.

Source: Southern TV

Lumbar disc herniation is also prone to be accompanied by sacroiliac joint disorder , which manifests as long-term, chronic low back and leg pain symptoms, affecting the patient's quality of life.

In addition, when lying on your side and playing with your phone, the muscles in your waist and back will be over-stretched, putting them in a state of tension and fatigue, which can easily lead to pain in the long run.

So, how do we use our mobile phones correctly?

3

Correct posture for using mobile phone

First of all, pay attention to the distance between the phone and your eyes . Whether you are using it daily or playing with your phone while lying down, be careful not to keep the screen too close to your eyes. It is recommended to keep the screen at a distance of one arm (about 50-70 cm).

Secondly, keep the light sufficient . Our eyes will automatically adjust the size of the pupil to adapt to different light conditions. When the light is poor, the pupil will dilate to capture more light; when the light is strong, the pupil will shrink to reduce the amount of light entering the eye. If you play with your phone in a dim environment, the screen light is strong, and the surrounding light is very weak, our pupils will increase the frequency of adjustment, which will easily lead to visual fatigue, and may also induce acute glaucoma , and even cause blindness in severe cases.

Source: pixabay

Therefore, when playing with your phone, you must ensure that there is sufficient light around you, and adjust the screen brightness to a level that is not significantly different from the surrounding light, so that you can see the screen clearly without much effort. If you want to play with your phone at night but don't want to turn on the headlights to affect your rest, you can also place a small lamp at the head of the bed, which can protect your eyes and is easy to turn on and off.

In addition, we should also pay attention to the usage time . A study showed that after a survey of 100 college students' visual acuity after playing with their mobile phones for one hour, the proportion of discomfort symptoms was as high as 93.9%. Therefore, we should avoid watching electronic screens for a long time and with high intensity. It is recommended to change the line of sight and look into the distance for 20 seconds after playing with the mobile phone for about 20 minutes. In addition, try not to look at the mobile phone screen for more than 4 hours a day .

Finally, remember to blink more . Normally, our eyes blink about 24 times per minute. Every time we blink, our eyes secrete tears to moisten the cornea and keep the eye surface moist. When playing with mobile phones, because our attention is focused on the phone screen, we blink less, resulting in insufficient tear secretion and easy drying of the eye surface. In the long run, it will lead to dry eyes and even dry eye syndrome .

Source: unsplash

In general, bad postures when using mobile phones can easily cause many eye diseases. For modern people, looking at mobile phones is something that cannot be avoided, so we should regulate our eye use and maintain good eye habits.

Prevention is better than cure for eyes. If you have any discomfort symptoms, such as dry eyes, photophobia, swelling and pain, you should go to the hospital immediately for medical treatment. Do not neglect it to avoid causing greater damage to your eyes.