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Modern Woman Health Woes, Solved

Your attachment to your cell phone and high heels is hurting your health. Here's what you can do to fix it
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Your Diagnosis: iPosture
The Symptoms: Chronic back pain and that "I slept on the wrong side" feeling in your neck.

The Culprits: Sadly, iPosture isn't a new app you can download to help you sit up straight; it's the hunched over, slouching position caused by regular smartphone, tablet, and laptop use. While your head is down and you're glued to the screen, your middle slouches, putting pressure on your lower back and its nerve roots, which leads to pain and, in some cases, numbness.

According to chiropractor Dr. Artemio Del Real of Serenity Health & Wellness in Chicago, the prolonged forward head posture that occurs with computer users and iPad users is often the cause of chronic head and neck pain as well. "One of the biggest misconceptions about neck pain is that people think they've slept wrong, but most pain is just a symptom of poor, tech-related posture."

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Your Rx: Get Engaged
Our bodies were made to move, so get active. Schedule reminders to get up, stretch, and walk around once every hour. Once you sit back down at your desk, check your alignment. Be sure your rear is pressed against the back of your chair, and engage your core muscles to keep from slouching forward or unnaturally tilting your pelvis back. Keep feet flat on the floor and your thighs parallel to the floor so your legs create a 90-degree angle.

To get yourself on the right track, try adding back support like the BackJoy Posture+, a portable seat that cups your glutes and tilts your pelvis upright, to help you zero in on what proper posture feels like.

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Your Diagnosis: Phone Face
The Symptoms: Your face has developed a stubborn problem area. Regardless of what you do, it's prone to breakouts, blotchiness, or discoloration that has no intention of leaving anytime soon.

The Culprits: We hate to tell you this, but your cell phone has more germs than a toilet seat. That disturbing fact sheds some light on why certain areas of the face, i.e. from the temple to the chin, seem to sprout blemishes on the regular. This area, referred to Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, cosmetic dermatologist and founder of 5th Avenue Dermatology Surgery and Laser Center in New York, as the "phone zone," gets hit face first by the bacterial breeding ground that is your phone screen.

That's not the only damage your phone can do to your face. Today's smartphones are basically tiny computers, and they get hot. According to Frank, the heat radiated from your cell during a long phone call can have the same damaging effects that the sun has on skin.

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Your Rx: Keep It Clean
To reduce breakouts, focus on exfoliating. "The Clarisonic, $125, is a great tool for exfoliating the face and will get rid of the dead layer of skin," says Dr. Frank. "Also, be sure to clean your phone often to get rid of germs and keep your face fresh."

If you're noticing dark spots rather than blemishes, heat is to blame. To prevent any more damage, cut your phone calls short, use a hand's free device or get used to FaceTime. To correct what's already been done, work a dark spot correcting serum into your skin care regimen. "Look for products that have hydroquinone-like ingredients that lighten the skin, such as arbutase, lactic acid, and lignin peroxidase," says Dr. Frank. His recommendations: Elure Advanced Brightening Lotion, $125 and Good Skin Labs Equinol Dark Spot Concentrate, $39.50.

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Your Diagnosis: High Heel Syndrome
The Symptoms: Your hip flexors and calves feel tight, and your knees hurt. And, now that you think about it ... so do your ankles and your lower back.

The Culprits: Regardless of how skilled you are at walking in them, heels are the main cause of heel, ankle, knee, hip, and lower back pain in women. The damage they do goes far beyond unfortunate stumbles -- we're talking nerve damage, inflamed ligaments, and a shortened Achilles tendon and calf muscles.

Wearing heels forces all of your body weight onto a small area (hence the throbbing pain in the balls of your feet), a shift that causes a chain effect of problems. "This positioning causes friction and inflammation to the metatarsal area, the group of five large bones at the middle of the foot," podiatrist Phillip Vasyli explains. "To counterbalance this instability, you unnaturally push your knees and hips forward and arch the back." And it only gets worse. Walking in heels also causes the soles of the feet to face more laterally than usual, the arches to collapse, and the soft tissues to loosen, meaning your feet are slowing getting more and more disfigured, Quasimodo style. Cringing yet?

BY ERICA SMITH | NOV 18, 2013 | SHARES
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