Well, ladies
Dani has been standing on one leg in every conversation for three weeks. Like a flamingo. Mid-sentence. I am not bringing it up again.
I am bringing up something else.
Tuesday. Back-to-back calls from nine to one. No lunch. Normal.
At 1:15 I stood up and caught my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My shoulders were basically touching my ears. I looked like I was bracing for impact. 😤
I was not stressed. I thought I was not stressed. But my shoulders had their own opinion and apparently they had been holding it for four hours.
This happens. You sit, you focus, you clench. Not your jaw (that is Sonia's department). Your shoulders. They creep up a millimeter at a time and by lunch you are wearing them as earrings.
I looked it up. The upper trapezius does this. It contracts when you are concentrating, when your arms are forward on a keyboard, when you are holding your phone. It is not a pain signal. It is a posture signal. Your body is bracing for something that is not coming.
The fix is stupid simple and that is why I ignored it for months.
Drop your shoulders. On purpose. Right now.
Pull them down and back. Not dramatically. Just let them fall. Hold for five seconds. That is it.
I did it at 1:15 on Tuesday and my neck released so fast I heard it. Not a crack. A kind of soft settling sound. Like my skeleton remembered where it was supposed to be. 💪
Now I do it three times a day. Before my first call. After lunch. At five when I close the laptop.
Five seconds each. Fifteen seconds total. I do not have time for a stretch routine. I have time for this.
Sonia would tell you to breathe into it, to notice the sensation, to sit with whatever the tension is holding. She is probably right. I do not care. I just want my shoulders below my jawline before the next call starts.
The thing I did not expect: it changes my voice. When my shoulders drop, my voice drops. Lower. Calmer. The 1:30 call on Tuesday went differently than the morning ones. I cannot prove it was the shoulders. I also cannot prove it was not. ✅
Check right now. I guarantee they are up.
