How to Ease Tension Headaches

05 Dec How to Ease Tension Headaches

Whether you’re a victim of chronic tension headaches or you’ve just experienced them occasionally, you know how painful they can be. Concentrating can be difficult when you’re feeling the pressure in your head. Your entire day may be down the drain when you experience these tough to deal with pains. Learn how to put your head at ease and avoid future tension headaches with a few of these tips below.

What is a Tension Headache?

Tension headaches are caused by a musculoskeletal problem, as opposed to migraines that are a neurological problem. Tension in the neck, jaw, shoulders, or back could lead to a tension headache. When you are experiencing pressure in your head, resulting in a headache, it may be caused by poor posture, knots in your neck, shoulder, and back, or other tension building and stress-related things.

Get Back to Basics

The discomfort of a tension headache can often be avoided with basic personal care practices such as hydration, sleeping position, getting enough sleep, eating well, taking breaks, and avoiding excessive stress. When your body is tired it can naturally slouch or relax in a way that will actually bring you more tension. Holding your neck or back in a certain way for extended periods may be leading to your discomfort. Sleeping too much, not enough, or in a certain position can also contribute to tension. And lastly, hydration is a basic that will help you keep the discomfort of a tension headache at bay.

Relax

This may seem like a no-brainer, but relaxation techniques, both physical and psychological could be the answer to your problems. Physical relaxation techniques may include using a heating pad on or stretching your tense areas. Practices like yoga may help you solve the problem both physically and psychologically. The problem could be an excess of stress in your life, a big life event or change, or anxiety.

Identifying the source of your tension is the first step to treating it. Relaxing may mean cutting unnecessary stress out of your life, or it may mean adding some downtime into your routine or possibly learning to manage and deal with good stress differently.

Work It Out

Relieving tension can also be done at the chiropractor. With tension headaches often coming from tense muscles in your neck and back, it can often be worked through with a good massage. Applying pressure to the tension points can help it to release. Massage therapy can not only help to relieve pain, but it can also help to prevent it. As trigger points in your neck and back are relaxed through massaging and apply pressure in the right spots, tension is relieved, and headaches are avoided.

Muscle tension leads to pressure on your nerves and blood vessels. When you experience massage therapy, not only is this pressure released but your blood flow increases. You can relieve tension all over your body, including in your head, with a proper massage.