A 5-minute desk routine for your neck and shoulders

This routine strings together seven desk-friendly moves in an order that goes from small movements to bigger ones, and it takes about five minutes. It is for anyone who spends long stretches at a laptop and wants a set sequence for a break.

The routine

Each move links to its own page with cues and variations. The times are a guide.

1. Reset your seat (15 seconds). Sit on your sit bones with your feet flat and your eyes level on a fixed point.
2. Chin tuck (45 seconds). Slide your head straight back, hold for 5 seconds, and repeat 6 to 8 times.
3. Shoulder blade squeeze (30 seconds). Draw your shoulder blades down and back, hold for 5 seconds, and repeat 5 times.
4. Upper trap stretch (45 seconds). Anchor one hand on the seat, tilt your ear toward your shoulder, and hold for 20 seconds each side.
5. Levator scapulae stretch (45 seconds). Turn your nose toward your armpit, nod gently, and hold for 20 seconds each side.
6. Thoracic extension over your chair (30 seconds). Lean back over the chair edge for 3 to 5 slow breaths, and repeat 3 times.
7. Doorway chest stretch (60 seconds). Hold for about 25 seconds each side.
8. Wall angels (30 seconds). Do 5 slow reps with your ribs down.

The sequence starts with the muscles that hold your head, moves to the ones around your shoulder blades, then opens your upper back and chest, and finishes by asking your shoulder blades to move against a wall.

What you should feel

Mild effort in the deep muscles of your neck and between your shoulder blades. Mild stretch along the sides and back of your neck, across the front of your chest, and through your mid back. Nothing sharp, and nothing that travels into your arms.

Common mistakes

• Doing all of it at full intensity. Pick 3 or 4 on a 10-point effort scale for every move.
• Rushing the transitions. Two breaths between moves makes each one better.
• Skipping sides. Stretch both sides even if one feels fine.
• Ignoring your setup. If your screen is low, your neck returns to the same position within minutes. Start with a monitor at eye height.
• Treating it as a replacement for moving during the day. It is a break, and it sits alongside standing and walking.

How long and how often

This is what was tested in office workers. A review of 27 workplace trials found moderate-quality evidence that neck and shoulder strengthening exercise reduced neck pain in office workers with symptoms, with larger effects when people took part more ^[1]. The same review found no clear difference when stretching was used on its own ^[1]. A second, smaller review of 8 trials favoured strengthening too, and suggested about an hour a week ^[2]. The Cochrane review of exercise for mechanical neck disorders describes the same pattern, with strengthening favoured over stretching alone ^[5].

Two trials show what those programmes looked like. In a 10-week trial of 47 office workers with chronic neck and shoulder pain, scapular strengthening three times a week, 20 minutes each, was followed by lower pain scores than in a control group ^[4]. In a trial of 96 office workers with neck pain, a stretching programme twice a day, five days a week, for four weeks, with ergonomic advice, was followed by lower pain than advice alone ^[3].

So a 5-minute routine is short compared with what was studied. The chin tuck, the shoulder blade squeeze and the wall angels are the strengthening-type moves in the sequence. If you want more of them, add a longer session on days when you are not at your desk.

An easier and a harder version

Easier: do the three moves in step 2, 3 and 7 only. That takes about two minutes.

Harder: hold the chin tuck for 10 seconds, add a resistance band to the shoulder blade squeeze, and take a second round of wall angels. Keep the same mild effort and stop when form slips.

At your desk

Everything except the doorway stretch and the wall angels can be done in your chair. If you work from a laptop, do the seated moves after each block of focused work, and go stand at a doorway once or twice a day. The LaptopNeck coach can run this loop for you as its 5-minute reset.

Stop and see a clinician if

• You feel numbness, tingling or weakness in your arms or hands.
• Pain spreads down an arm.
• You feel dizzy or faint.
• You get double vision or other visual change, a drop attack, or new trouble walking or using your hands.
• Your pain started after an injury, a fall or a car accident.
• Your pain is severe, keeps getting worse, or exercise is not helping ^[6].
• You have new or severe headaches.

This page is general information and cannot diagnose the cause of your pain.