Smartphones have become our inseparable partners. We arched our backs and stared at the screen, stared at the blue light, sacrificing interpersonal communication in exchange for digital companionship. Over time, these habits can seriously damage our health.

Luckily, there are some negative effects that can be avoided without completely giving up on the company of your handheld. Here are how to protect your health from your smartphone.

Improve posture

Are you standing or sitting while using your smartphone? If you bend down and look down at the screen, your neck is sore, then you are not alone.

Studies have shown that this unnatural posture, known as the "head-down cervical spondylosis", may lead to an increasing number of neck and spinal injuries. Todd Lanman, a spinal neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told Reuters last year that we are looking down at our phones for hours a day, reversing the normal posterior curve of the neck.

He provided a solution, although this might attract some strange eyes from those around him. Keep your phone at a height of sight when texting, emailing, or using a social network (the higher the phone is, the better). This habit allows you to keep your head raised and your shoulders backwards, just like you are sitting correctly in front of a computer.

Vertical Align's pose coach also recommends keeping your phone at sight height. Additionally, they recommend keeping your arms close to your body when standing. When sitting, lean forward—also keeping your phone at sight height—place your elbows on your knees.

Your hand posture is also important. Experts also recommend using both hands to operate the phone symmetrically. This disperse the pressure on the arms and spine. The Vertical Align team says that if you click and slide with just one hand, you should change hands regularly.

Reducing the time spent using your smartphone for a long time can also help improve posture and prevent other potential problems such as eye fatigue. Basically, you should avoid staring at your phone for a long time. If you have to use your phone, take a break with some simple stretching exercises, such as turning your neck.

Reduce blue light

The sun and your digital devices emit short wavelength high energy blue light. When blue light comes from our stars, it’s great – it helps us stay awake during the day by stopping the brain from producing melatonin (which makes us sleepy). But when you are lying in bed, the light from the screen keeps you awake, that's not good. Darkness naturally makes us feel sleepy, and staring at our phones late at night can interfere with this natural law.

Not only that. Recent studies have discovered a process where excessive blue light can severely damage cells in the eyes. Scientists say that if blue light kills enough of these photoreceptor cells, it may lead to serious diseases such as macular degeneration.

Luckily, both Android and iOS offer some settings that can help reduce your exposure to Blu-ray.

On Android device, go to Settings > Display > Night Mode. Select to turn on now, change the screen color to amber tone, reducing the wavelength of blue light it emits. To schedule this change so that it will occur automatically at a specific time of day, click Schedule.

For iOS, you will find a similar option called Night Mode. Access it by going to Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Mode . To turn it on only if needed, click to enable it manually until tomorrow . Or make it automatically turn on and off by clicking Schedule.

These color change options should reduce the damage to your eyes and sleep patterns by blue light. But we also recommend limiting your phone usage time at night. Whatever lighting settings you adjust to keep your mind running fast on social media or Netflix shows isn’t the best preparation for a good night’s sleep. With that in mind, consider using books instead of late-night viewing Twitter, or having your Amazon Echo read the evening news aloud so you don’t have to read the text.

Manage screen time

One of the best ways to protect your health from your phone is to reduce the frequency of using the device. To help achieve this, both iOS and Android have introduced so-called “digital health” tools that will inform you and help you limit your smartphone use. However, you may not be able to access them yet. Apple's new suite is called Screen Time, and it will appear in the iOS 12 update released in September; Google's version is an app called Digital Health App, currently in beta, so you need to install it on your Google Pixel phone Android 9 Pie can only try it.

When you get iOS updates, you can try it by going to Settings > Screen Use Time. It will show you how you use your device every day, breaking it down into app categories like gaming or education. Click on the device name at the top of the screen to see other statistics: weekly usage, list of the most popular apps, and a chart showing how often you pick up your phone and receive notifications. To limit the time you spend on a specific app, click the program and click Add limit . You can also set restrictions by category by going to the homepage of the Screen Use Time menu and clicking Apply Restrictions . After the time limit is reached, the relevant app will appear gray on the home screen, but you can manually override this block.

When your Android phone receives an update that enables its time management app, you will see a new Digital Health entry in Settings . Here you can view recent information about the apps you have used, the number of times you unlock your phone, and the number of notifications you have received. Click the pie chart showing this information to access a more detailed daily breakdown, and swipe right to view your statistics for the past few days and weeks. Like iOS, you can set limits: Click the no timer button next to a given app. Likewise, when you reach this limit, the app will appear grayed out and launching it will show a deterrent message. To override the limits you set yourself, you need to return to the Digital Health menu and disable the timer.

Screen usage time and digital health also include tools—“Disache Time” on iOS and “Sleeping” on Android—which can help you get rid of it by blocking you from accessing the app after a specific time. Time to use your phone in the evening. "Get to Sleep" can also gray the screen or switch to night mode during this time.

While waiting for Android and iOS tools to arrive, try using third-party apps, such as the free app Flipd, which will gently remind you when you use your phone for a long time, or the $2 Forest app, which will be available on your When your phone is free, you are encouraged to rest and plant virtual forests. For more options, check out this time management app list.

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