Be honest: how is your neck feeling right now? If you are reading this on a phone, the answer is probably not great. Hours of scrolling, typing and staring at screens slowly pull our heads forward until our shoulders feel like they belong to someone twice our age.
That is why we love this little clip. No gym, no equipment, no complicated instructions. Just a woman with gorgeous dark red hair, a black ruffled top and a beautiful garden full of grape vines turning gold for autumn. She stands still, closes her eyes and starts to move her head. Slowly.
Tilt to the right. Hold. Back to the middle. Tilt to the left. Hold. Chin gently down, then up again. The movements are tiny, but you can almost feel them through the screen. Somewhere around the third tilt you will notice that you have started doing it too. Do not worry, everybody does.
The setting does half of the work. Golden leaves, soft afternoon light, the quiet green of the vines behind her. It looks like a place where nobody has ever received an urgent email. That might be the real secret of the exercise: it is not only the neck that relaxes, it is the whole head.
Physiotherapists love these simple routines because they are easy to repeat. A few gentle tilts in the morning, a few more during a work break, and the tension that builds up during a long day does not get the chance to settle in. No sweating, no special clothes, no excuses.
At the end she opens her eyes and smiles, and it is a very convincing smile. The smile of someone whose shoulders just dropped two centimetres. We would like that smile too, please.
Will two minutes in the garden fix a whole week of screen time? Probably not entirely. But it is a lovely start, and it is a lot more pleasant than another hour of scrolling with your chin on your chest.
So here is your challenge for today: put the phone down after this post, stand up, find the nearest window or plant, and tilt your head slowly to the right. Your neck will thank you. And then you can come back and keep surfing.
Don’t stop, friend, keep surfing!
