The 5 best exercises to fix your posture and get rid of ‘tech neck’

By Rebecca Cope, Published in The Sunday Times, August 2 2025

How you sit and stand affects everything from breathing to digestion. This is how to get it right.

When your school teachers used to tell you to sit up straight and not slouch they were doing more for you than ensuring you were concentrating on the lesson. 

“The efficiency of your posture makes or breaks your life,” says Eleanor Dalton, the author of the forthcoming book Posture Power. “Poor posture creates musculoskeletal aches and pains, such as herniated discs or ‘tech neck’. If you’re slouching your shoulders and your rib cage is compressed, you can’t breathe properly. If you’re sitting down all the time with rounded shoulders and a closed hip posture, your digestive system is compromised.”

It’s not too late to fix it. “The problems people have aren’t age related, they’re to do with habits,” Dalton says. “Anybody can make huge improvements if they do the right thing for their body.” Here are five ways to improve your posture.

1. Fix ‘tech neck’

“Human beings are not supposed to be sitting down all the time, heads dangling in front of them, on a computer,” Dalton says. Signs that your neck has been affected by desk-working include a hard lump at the top of your neck — which is actually one of your vertebrae that has become misaligned — and poor circulation and numbness in the hands. 

To release the tension in your neck, lie on your front and place your arms out at your sides, resting on yoga blocks (or a pile of hardback books) with elbows bent at a 90-degree angle. Rest your forehead on the floor (careful you don’t squish your nose). Stay here for 10 to 20 minutes if it feels good, Dalton says.

2. Solve back and shoulder pain

Hunching forward affects the spine and shoulders too, due to the excessive strain placed on them as they try to resist gravity to hold your head up. 

Ease this by lying on your back on the floor with your head on a pillow. Prop your legs up on the sofa, knees bent, and lay your arms by your sides, reaching away from the body with palms facing upwards. Relax your legs and keep your lower back and the back of your ribcage flush to the floor. Stay here for ten minutes — or up to an hour if it feels good for you (and you have the time). 

“This exercise uses time, gravity, body weight and the floor to balance a twisted pelvis, lengthen and de-rotate twisted vertebrae in the spine, balance the ribcage and open the chest,” Dalton says. “It’s also great for sciatica, hip, knee and neck pain, and helps to decompress the chest and abdominal cavity.” 

3. Banish bad digestion

Slouching or hunching puts pressure on the abdominal organs, increasing the risk of conditions such as acid reflux, indigestion and constipation. 

Nadia Alibhai, an osteopath, recommends diaphragmatic breathing, “which really opens up space around the abdominal area. Take a deep breath in and count to three, then breathe out through your nose for the count of five. As you’re breathing in, your tummy should expand and your chest should rise; as you breathe out, your navel should come towards your spine.” 

4. Breathe easier

Poor posture can lead to restricted lung capacity, which in turn can affect our breathing. “A chest-opener exercise will help,” Alibhai says. Lie on your back with a rolled-up towel positioned below the shoulder blades. Hold your arms out at a 90-degree angle while keeping legs straight or bent, whichever feels better. 

Another option is to stand in a doorway, holding your arms out to your sides at shoulder height and bent at a 90-degree angle so that they are pressing into the door frame. Lean forwards gently. This will stretch the pectoralis muscles and “help to open the chest, which then takes pressure off the diaphragm and expands everything to allow

5. Halt headaches

Stop staring at your phone. “One of the most common reasons for headaches is our recurrent forward head posture, where our head is hanging down,” Alibhai says. To alleviate this, “tuck your chin in for about five seconds until it forms a double chin. This activates your suboccipital muscles at the back of your neck. Once those get activated, they help to lift the head. The more that those get stretched, the less you will get headaches.”

If you are suffering from neck pain, which is not responding to conservative management, please contact Dr. Krishna at Painspa.

For more details, please visit www.painspa.co.uk.