I’ve been working from home for a while now and by evening my neck and shoulders are just locked up, every single day. I kept telling myself I’d start some kind of real routine, strength stuff, stretching, whatever, and then never actually did it because “starting” felt like such a big step.
What finally worked was making the bar so low it was embarrassing. No workout plan, no timer app, NOTHING scheduled. I just picked a few things that already happen every day anyway and tied a tiny movement to each one.
First, every time I stood up from a call, I did a slow neck roll before sitting back down, even if the next call started right away.
Second, while the kettle was heating up in the kitchen, I did shoulder rolls and a couple of wall angels against the hallway wall.
Third, before I let myself sit down for dinner, I stretched my neck side to side and rolled my shoulders back a few times.
None of it felt like exercise, which is honestly probably why it stuck. For the first while I couldn’t tell if it was doing anything at all. Then one evening I noticed my shoulders weren’t up by my ears the way they usually are by that point, and that was kind of the moment it clicked.
I’m still nowhere near a “real” strength routine, and knitting in the evenings is still my go-to for giving my hands and shoulders a slower kind of rest. But the constant evening ache is a lot less constant now, and that was the whole goal.
Sorry for the long one, folks, I tend to overexplain everything!