Grounding for tight shoulders and neck: 5 minutes, in the office

About this practice

Slow, spoken guidance for tight shoulders and neck. A grounding session you can do in the office. A guided session of about 5 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: tight shoulders and neck

Shoulders rise towards the ears under sustained stress, and the muscles of the upper back shorten to hold that posture. The result is a stiff neck and a heavy upper back.

It tends to show up as:

• Shoulders up around the ears
• Stiff neck, especially after screens
• Headaches that start at the back of the head

Weight and gravity do the release. Noticing the contact points lets the shoulders stop holding themselves up.

Doing this at your desk

• Feet flat, back supported, screen away from your eyeline
• You can do this with your eyes open if the office makes closing them awkward
• Unclench the jaw and drop the shoulders first, before anything else

Nobody needs to know you are doing it. Keep it invisible if that makes it possible.

How grounding works

Grounding brings attention to physical contact and the immediate environment. It works on the principle that the body cannot be somewhere else, so contact with the surface you are on is always available as an anchor.

• Feel the contact points — feet, seat, back — and let them take your weight
• Use the senses deliberately: what you can see, hear, touch
• Return to solidity whenever attention drifts

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Notice whether you're leaning forward. Most people are, slightly, all day.
2. 0:12There's no need to try harder than this.
3. 0:23You can think about other things. When you notice, come back. That's the whole practice.
4. 0:37Let your body be exactly as tired as it is.
5. 0:49Let the breath be slow enough that you can hear it, just barely.
6. 1:02Feel your breath move down your back, all the way to your lower ribs.
7. 1:16Feel your forearms, from the elbow down to the wrist.
8. 1:28Feel the parts of you that have gone quiet.
9. 1:39Let the whole of your left foot be heavy.
10. 1:50Take the next breath slowly.
11. 1:59Follow one full breath from the moment it starts to the moment it ends.
12. 2:13Let me stop talking. Follow the breath instead.
13. 2:24Nothing here needs to be efficient.
14. 2:34If you're judging your performance, that's the same habit as judging everything else.
15. 2:47You do not have to like the stiff neck from hunching to breathe through it. Liking was never the requirement.
16. 3:04There is no correct amount of the weight carried in the upper back to be feeling right now. Whatever is here is the honest amount.
17. 3:23Follow the breath down into your belly and feel it come back up.
18. 3:36If you catch yourself fighting the shoulders up around your ears, that is worth noticing. The fight usually costs more than the feeling.
19. 3:54If you're irritated, that's allowed. Irritation is just weather.
20. 4:05Let's rest here in silence. It's short.
21. 4:15We'll take this slowly, and there's no version of this where you get it wrong.
22. 4:29Come back to the room through your senses, one at a time.

Questions people ask

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.