Desk stretches for neck and shoulders: five moves, step by step

The quickest desk stretches for the neck and shoulders are four you can do in your chair (chin tucks, ear to shoulder, shoulder rolls and an upper trapezius stretch) plus a doorway chest stretch on your way past. Done in that order, with a short hold on each side, they take about two minutes.

Each one should feel like a mild, easy pull, never pain. If a stretch hurts, you have gone too far, and if it keeps hurting, the neck needs a professional more than it needs a routine.

Before you start: a few safety notes

• Slow and small. Neck stretches need far less force than you might think. Move into a gentle stretch, then stop.
• No cranking. Don't pull hard on your head, and skip fast circles or tipping your head far back.
• Keep breathing. Holding your breath is a sign you are pushing too hard.
• Stop for warning signs. Stop straight away if you feel dizzy, if your vision changes, or if tingling, numbness or pain runs down an arm.
• Ask first if you are injured. After a neck injury or recent surgery, or with pain that keeps returning, ask a physiotherapist or a doctor which stretches suit you.

The two-minute routine at a glance

That comes to about two minutes. If you have longer, hold each stretch closer to 30 seconds and add one of the extras further down.

Step by step

1. Chin tucks

1. Sit tall with your back against the chair and look straight ahead.
2. Draw your head straight back, the way you would to make a double chin, with your eyes level. You are moving your head back, not nodding down.
3. Hold for about three seconds. You should feel a gentle stretch at the base of your skull.
4. Relax, and repeat five times.

It looks silly, and it is the best single move for undoing an hour of leaning in. Tech neck explains why the head drifts forward in the first place.

2. Ear to shoulder

1. Sit tall and let both shoulders drop.
2. Slowly lower your right ear toward your right shoulder. Don't lift the shoulder to meet it.
3. For a little more, let your left arm hang and stretch the fingertips down toward the floor.
4. Hold for about 15 seconds, come back to the middle slowly, and do the other side.

3. Shoulder rolls

Lift both shoulders toward your ears, squeeze them back, then let them drop down. Make the circles slow and big. Do ten backward, then five forward. The backward circles open the chest, and the forward ones loosen the tops of the shoulders.

4. Upper trap stretch

The upper trapezius runs from the back of your head and neck out to the top of each shoulder. It is usually the muscle people mean when they say their shoulders are tight.

1. Sit tall and hold the side of your chair seat with your right hand. This keeps the right shoulder anchored down.
2. Tip your left ear toward your left shoulder.
3. Reach your left hand over the top of your head and rest it lightly above your right ear. Let the weight of your arm add a little stretch. Don't pull.
4. Hold for about 15 seconds. You should feel it along the right side of the neck and across the top of the right shoulder. Release slowly and switch sides.

5. Doorway chest stretch

Get up and use the nearest doorway, ideally on the way to refill your water.

1. Rest your forearms on either side of the frame, elbows at about shoulder height.
2. Step one foot through and lean forward gently until you feel a stretch across your chest and the fronts of your shoulders.
3. Keep your chin level and your shoulders down. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds.

No doorway nearby? Sit at the front of your chair, clasp your hands behind you, draw your shoulder blades together and lift your chest. If your shoulder has ever dislocated or feels unstable, ask a physiotherapist before doing either version.

Extras if you have time

• Nose to armpit. Turn your head about halfway to the left, then drop your nose toward your left armpit and rest your left hand lightly on the back of your head. You will feel it at the back of the neck on the right, a spot the ear-to-shoulder stretch misses. Hold for 15 seconds, then switch.
• Cross-body shoulder stretch. Bring your right arm across your chest and hold it just above the elbow with your left hand. Hold for 20 seconds, feeling it at the back of the shoulder, then switch.
• Shoulder blade squeezes. Draw your shoulder blades back and down, hold for five seconds and release. Do ten.
• Look around. Slowly turn your head to look over one shoulder, then the other, a few times each way.

If your shoulders also roll forward through the day, rounded shoulders from desk work adds strengthening moves that go well with these.

How long should you hold a neck stretch?

For gentle desk stretching, about 15 to 30 seconds per hold is the usual advice, done once or twice on each side. Chin tucks and shoulder rolls are movements rather than holds, so count reps instead. Longer and harder is not better for the neck. If a stretch starts to ache rather than ease, back off or let it go.

How often should you stretch at your desk?

A few times a day beats one long session. Neck and shoulder stiffness builds while you sit, so short resets through the day keep ahead of it. The best moments are ones that already exist: after a call, when you send a long email, while something exports, when you get up for water.

If you want your Mac to keep count, there are built-in ways:

• Clock. Recent versions of macOS include a Clock app with timers. Start a 50-minute timer when you begin a block of work, and run the routine when it goes off.
• Reminders. Make a reminder called "Neck and shoulders", give it a time and set it to repeat. Three or four at different times of day work better than an hourly repeat, which knows nothing about meetings or lunch.

Both go off at a set time, even halfway through a call or a hard paragraph, which is why many people end up switching them off. Tying the routine to getting up from the chair tends to last longer, because one habit carries the other along.

When neck and shoulder pain needs more than stretching

Stretching eases everyday stiffness. It is not a treatment. Book a physiotherapist or a doctor if:

• pain lasts more than a week or two, or keeps coming back,
• you get headaches that seem to start in the neck,
• numbness, tingling or weakness runs into an arm or hand,
• the pain began after a fall, a knock or a car accident,
• stretching makes it worse rather than better.

A stiff neck that comes with a fever and a bad headache needs urgent medical attention, not stretching.

Let Nick pick the moment

Nick, a fluffy white spitz with a keen sense of when you have sat too long, belongs to the Movement area of Notchpals, the Mac app that sends its reminders out of the notch. If he is in your crew, he drops in now and then with a Stretch visit, and he usually names one move rather than asking you to vaguely stretch:

NickStiff neck? Tilt your head, like I do when I'm confused.

That is step 2 of the routine above, so take the cue and run the whole two minutes. Stretch visits share the crew's daily allowance for repeating reminders, so they arrive a few times a day, not every half hour, and they hold off while the camera or microphone is in use, so a call won't be interrupted. His Stand up visit, after nearly an hour at the Mac without a break, is the other good moment for this routine, since you are already halfway to the doorway.