Neck Reset is a stretch sequence for the most abused joint complex of the screen age: six neck stretches, each held for 30 seconds - looking up, tilting to each side, dropping the chin down, and rotating to each side. Extension, lateral flexion, flexion and rotation: every direction your neck moves, given half a minute of undivided attention.

The sequence works through the neck's full range in an order that makes anatomical sense. It opens with extension - looking up - which reverses the forward-dropped head position that phones and monitors carve into a day, lengthening the front of the throat and waking the deep neck flexors from their slump. The side tilts then lengthen the upper trapezius and levator scapulae, the two muscles that store shoulder tension and convert stress into stiffness. Chin-down flexion stretches the back of the neck where tension headaches are born, and the closing rotations restore the range you use every time you check a blind spot. Thirty seconds per stretch is deliberate: brief stretches merely alert a muscle, while a slow half-minute persuades the nervous system to actually release its grip - and with the neck, the grip is nearly always neurological before it is muscular.

Move into each position slowly and stop at a stretch, never a strain - the neck rewards gentleness and punishes enthusiasm. Keep your shoulders heavy and dropped throughout; they will try to creep up toward your ears, especially during the side tilts. Let the weight of your head do the work rather than pulling with muscle, and breathe slowly through every hold - each exhale is another millimeter given freely.

Your head weighs as much as a bowling ball and your neck carries it all day without complaint. Three minutes of thanks, six directions, well earned.

Make it Harder: That is not what a neck wants to hear - what it wants is this sequence twice a day, and that is the harder and better challenge.

Make it Easier: Shorten each hold to 15 seconds and stay well inside a comfortable range.