Habits have a funny way of catching up with us. If we indulge in too much of a sweet food, then our teeth or our midsection begins to show it. Not exercising enough ends up with us finding out we can’t quite walk as far as we once could. These are fairly common examples, but the habit most likely to catch up to us in the modern era is our love of our cell phones. We spend a lot of time looking down and checking the latest reports or trying to match that one last piece. This may be working against us if our goals involve trying to stave off the signs of aging for as long as possible? The so-called “tech neck” is one of the current worries in beauty. Let’s take a quick look at what that means and what can be done about it.

Looking Down
Think about what most of us do when interacting with our phones. We glance downward so readily that we don’t even think about it. Statistically speaking, that’s probably how you’re reading this right now. It is the simplest way to see our phones and doesn’t involve any awkward or obvious movement. Remember what you know about skincare now. This is a repetitive motion and that tends to damage the skin. In particular, repetitive motion has a habit of creating areas where the skin folds. Each time your skin folders it damages the collagen in that area and thereby contributes to the formation of wrinkles. This is why you generally find fine lines and wrinkles forming around such areas first. The smartphone has made our neck far more likely to start showing sooner because of this.

What Can I Do?
The obvious solution of learning to use one’s phone less really isn’t practical in this era. Our phones are our ties to the entire world and allow us to find things, organize our thoughts, and stay on schedule. For some, taking away a phone would be just as bad as removing one of their senses. A very simple thing you can do is simply change how you’re looking at your phone. It really doesn’t take that much effort to actually lift your phone up to a point where you don’t need to bend your neck forward to see it. You can even place its dock in such a way that you can glance at it without moving your neck when in your home office. Doing this will, in essence, entirely remove the way your cellphone can cause wrinkles. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done in many cases as it involves learning all new habits. You do have other options to help while you learn these habits.

Topical Treatments
If you’re at all familiar with anti-aging skincare, then you know a topical vitamin C treatment can be particularly effective at helping to minimize and mitigate wrinkle formation in wrinkle-prone areas. These come in enough forms that you can easily find one suitable for use on your neck. Additionally, treatments high in vitamin E are another good choice to improve overall elasticity. All of this is achievable without utilizing any specialty products designed to target your neck. There are plenty of products designed to do just that though. A good neck firming cream or lotion can go a long way to helping reduce the rate at which wrinkles begin to appear on your neck. There are further specialty treatments available to talk to your dermatologist about if the problem has already progressed beyond prevention though.

Cell phones are our constant companions these days. All they do for us makes them simply an afterthought in many cases as we use them as nothing short of an extension of ourselves. This makes any negative effects from them hard to recognize and move to mitigate. You know about the potential problems they represent now though and can work on changing your habits accordingly.