Is the Digital Marketing Profession Slowly Killing Us?
How are you feeling today?
No, I’m not asking about your mood or your general health, but rather your muscles.
Are they hurting anywhere? Do you have this nagging pain in your shoulder or neck region that seems to creep up just when you’re getting in your zone?
Sore neck, shoulders, lower back, arms and hips are just a few of the effects that come from sitting all day and hunching forward to get a better view of your screen. While advancements in technology allow us a lot of flexibility in how we work, it also leads to inflexibility in terms of our muscles and limbs.
For me, these issues started becoming more acute in the last couple of years. Pain in my neck and shoulder area would be so intense that I wouldn’t be able to work at all sometimes. It would also radiate to other parts of my body like my arms and lower back. One time, I wasn’t even able to turn my head to the left or right because it hurt too much.
I’ve always been a fairly active person, but that didn’t matter.
I soon learned how my future was going to look if I didn’t try to address these pain issues – multiple surgeries, medications and dependence on others.
When I was still in my late 20s and starting out in my copywriting career, it wasn’t something I spent much time thinking about. My mentality was “that stuff is for old people, I don’t need to concern myself with posture and whether my head is properly aligned with my spine.”
Oh how a little pain and some frank discussions can change your mind!
Now I’m not bringing all of this up to shoot a bunch of alarming statistics back at you on the effects of working in front of laptops, smartphones and tablets has on our musculoskeletal health. We’ll save that for a later edition.
As a copywriter, content marketer and manager for the last 7+ years, I have read, listened and watched all sorts of things on how to write better headlines, get more engagement with your blog posts, or how to kick start your freelance writing career.
What I haven’t seen is an extensive discussion and blueprint for dealing with a challenge all of us in the content marketing and freelance copywriting profession face – that is how do we prevent or manage pain and what steps do we take to ensure long-term muscular health.
My goal with this and upcoming articles is to spark a discussion and offer tips on how digital marketing professionals can manage this critical challenge for those us who must work with technology ALL of the time.
Upcoming pieces in the series will include:
- Posture – the effects, both short and long-term, on bad posture and how you can ensure proper alignment of your head and spine when working in front of your laptop, smartphone, or tablet.
- Stretching – the importance of stretching and how it is critical to relieving tightness that leads to pain. Learn a few simple (at-home) and more advanced stretches you can be doing to relieve pain in your neck, shoulders, back and hips.
- Exercise – we all know exercise is important, but how does it connect with our work as freelance copywriters, SEOs, designers and digital marketers? Learn some good muscle building and toning exercises you can employ to avoid a future of chronic pain and lifelessness.
- Massage Therapy – need immediate relief but don’t want to resort to narcotic medications? Learn why massage therapy is a more effective option for reliving pain and tightness and how it gives your muscles a fresh start.
Each of these sections will include a mix of my own experience and some insights from two professionals I have had the privilege of working with to address these issues for myself.
It’s my sincere goal to share these insights with my fellow marketing and freelancing professionals so they too can enjoy the rewards our profession provides without ruining their health in the process.
So, how are you feeling today?
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net