A largely overlooked factor in headaches

Headaches are one of the more common things people present with in clinical practice. Which is no surprise when you know that approximately 3.1 BILLION people in 2021 were reported to have suffered with them. Quite interestingly though is that it usually comes as a secondary/less ‘important’ symptom when I first meet people. Perhaps they’ve become such a ‘norm’ that people are starting to just not care. 

Headaches can also vary quite a lot both in presentation and intensity. You may have heard of cluster headaches, migraines, tension headaches, cervicogenic headaches and you may feel/know that you've had one or more yourself. However these are often misdiagnosed/self diagnosed incorrectly. Most of them tend to be tension or cervicogenic and therefore most of them can be helped with the right advice!

If you looked on the internet right now and searched for advice on headaches you’d likely find the standard ‘Do stretches, get a massage, stay hydrated, change your desk setup’ advice, which is all really good advice if that’s all you need, but usually that just stops you from crossing the line between underlying issue and actual discomfort. 

There's one big factor/’type’ of headaches I haven't mentioned yet, and that’s stress headaches. I haven’t mentioned it because really it’s stress causing other issues, which then lead to the headaches, but nonetheless stress is the thing that needs to be worked on in order to help them, and THAT is usually overlooked. 

I mean, how many people have you heard say they’ve suffered from chronic headaches so they’re going to see a therapist about it? Hardly any right? I haven’t either and I’m in the best profession to hear about these things. So the only reason I can conclude this is, is that people aren’t aware.

So what happens for stress to cause your headaches?

A stress response should really be a sympathetic nervous system response, or as you’ll probably have heard it be called, a fight, flight, freeze response. This happens every time we experience stress and it plays a variety of important roles in our day to day life. Issue is however that a lot of people become stuck in this response and for a variety of different reasons. Over enough time (around 3 months) and it becomes a state of chronic stress, which therein lies the issue. 

When you’re under stress your body starts to prioritise. It pays less attention to small, supportive muscles in your body and starts pumping all its reserves into the big muscles instead for, you know…fighting tigers and stuff.  This leaves us in a state of hyperactive shoulders, chest, hip flexors, basically everything that gives us that ‘rounded’ poor posture, and comparatively underactive small muscles like the ones that support and stabilise our spine. Give someone 3+ months of that and no wonder they have headaches…and the rest.