Posts Tagged "headaches"

3 Great ways to treat Tension Headaches

Posted by mark in Neck Pain Essentials | 0 comments

Here are 3 ways to help treat those dreaded tension headaches.

It might sound paradoxical at first, but this is very effective in relieving tension headache.

Try to soak your feet in hot water to get relief from tension headache. By drawing blood to your feet, the hot-water foot bath will help in easing pressure on the blood vessels in the head. Pressure on the blood vessels in the head following a contraction of the muscles in the head and neck is the primary reason for tension headache, and this technique, without medication, might do just that – ease the pressure on the blood vessels.

If you cannot find hot water for soaking your feet, you might use a hot compress on your forehead or at the back of your neck. Since the contraction of muscles causes headache, this hot compress might help in relaxing the contracted muscles and provide instant relief to you from the tension headache.

Neck Pain and Headaches

Posted by mark in Neck Pain Causes, Neck Pain Essentials |

Are you suffering neck pain because of your headaches or headaches because of your neck pain? Here is an easy way to find out.

Let’s address your neck pain first. It is absolutely vital that you address the major causes of your neck pain so that you can give your neck a fighting chance to heal. If you are hurting and aggravating your neck each and every day in every little way you will most definitely be suffering from neck pain. If you sit and stand for prolonged periods of time during the day with a forward head posture this will not only give you neck pain (guaranteed) but also can produce headaches most commonly at the back of the head and above your eye. These are by the way, easy to fix.

When you sit and stand with a forward head posture you ask an enormous amount from the structures of your neck. Every inch your ear moves in front of the top of your shoulder you start creating huge forces on your neck. Every inch from the central position creates an extra 10 lbs of stress on your neck! I would expect many of you who are reading this slouched over your laptop or computers are in the vicinity of 2-3 inches forward translation.This means you are asking your necks to hold up a 30lb weight (your head) for hours at a time. This strains the soft tissues and can create trigger points which refer pain.

Trigger points in your muscles at the back of your head and neck can produce headaches. Muscles do not like to be in sustained contraction. Imagine if I asked you to hold your arm out to the side at shoulder height and then I tied a 20 lb bag of potatoes around your wrist. The strain on your shoulder would be unbearable within minutes (or seconds for most). However, you ask exactly this of your neck muscles day after day after day as you slouch over your bowl of soup, slouch in your chair at the computer, and spend countless hours reading driving and texting people with your head in a forward position.

This is your first port of call. To remove your neck pain you must remove the forward head posture. Not only will this allow your neck to start to heal but it will also stop your neck from hurting and may very well stop your headaches!

Please read these articles:

Neck pain-the 4 best ways to get it

Stretching- Here is one of the worst to do

Which exercises should you do for a pinched nerve

Neck Exercises-The best and Worst to do and Why

If you are suffering from headaches it can also produce neck pain because of the suffering produced by being in pain. Having headaches can be very debilitating and stressful. This in itself can wind up the muscles in your neck. So what should you do?

I suggest you do exactly what I have written about above. If your headaches are coming from your neck you will stop your headaches and this in turn will stop your neck pain.