Migraines & Headaches
Headaches and Migraines are a very common symptom which can often be caused or exacerbated by tight tissues around the neck and head.
Causes
The causes of tightening of the tissues around the neck and head are a combination of the following two categories:
1. Physical Stagnation
Stagnation of the tissue is usually caused from a prolonged lack of movement such as long hours at a desk, and can be further aggravated with poor posture during these times of limited movement. This prolonged lack of movement can cause the tissue to harden and solidify.
2. Mental Stress
Mental Stress can be generated from any area of life or a combination of any. Typical examples are overall workload volume, Competing demands, or particular activities. These mental stressors can go unnoticed, causing a progressively guarded posture, and hardened tissue in the head and neck area – a guarded posture, such as thoracic flexion, forward head, rounded shoulders and tightened tissue. As if the body gradually assumes more of a guarded position, armouring to protect itself.
Common Symptoms related to Mental Stress
– Jaw Grinding / clenching
– Tight/Sore upper back/neck
– Brain fog / slower mental processing
– Vertigo / diziness
– Other compulsions such as hair pulling, nail biting, tapping feet etc.
Interim Solutions
Physical Stagnation
Massage can be useful to:
– Soften and improve the condition of the tissues
– Break the defensive holding pattern of the tissues.
Mental Stress
Some interim solutions to mitigate immediate headache/migraine pain are as follows
Botox
Botox does seem to be reliable for immediate headache/migraine reduction, averaging roughly 3 months of relief. Disadvantages of botox is that it may be expensive and have side effects from injecting neurotoxins into muscles around the neck and head. Effectiveness of treatment can vary depending on the skill of the practitioner administering the injections. Typically cosmetic practitioners have greater skill with administration, but are more expensive than neruologists, due to govermnment reinbursement schemes which may apply if it is deemed medically necessary for you to recieve treatment.
Medications
Medications can be effective in reducing headache/migraine symptoms, usually offering short-term relief. However, Headache/Migraine meidications seem to be more idiosyncratic in nature, with significant variation in symptom relief between different individuals. Medications can also vary in effectiveness depending on how early in an onset and may cause other side effects and chemical toxicity.
Massage
Massage can be effective in reducing headache/migraine symptoms, usually offering short/medium term relief. Massage effectiveness can vary significantly depending on the skill of the practitioner, and may include some discomfort during a treatment. The advantage of massage is that it has no other toxicity or side effects, and works to directly improve the condition of the tissues, rather than simply turning off a pain signal, or preventing the muscles from contracting naturally.
In addition, cardio activity or heavy breathing practices may also have a flushing effect and improve headaches/migraines in the short term.
All of these options (and others) can have their place in a potential suite of solutions to remove pain in the short term, however, if you can manage it, massage is a great place to start, as it is low risk and no side effects.
Medium/Long-Term Solutions
Ultimately, the medium and long-term solutions involve behavioural changes. Whether we want to look at it or not, it is the unassuming daily activities which accumulate to dictate our long-term health. Often with some simple yet frequent and ongoing targeted adjustments or offset activities, we can bring our bodies and minds back to a happy equilibrium. These stepwise behavioural changes may seem small and insignificant, but these are the magic humble shifts which over time, can transform our lives.
Both physical and mental aggravators can be an iterative process and a gradual a process of raising your self-awareness and ongoing pattern interruption and mindset/physical/physiological adjustments to retrain the behaviours long-term and form new habits. This work may best be described as simple, but hard.
Physical Staganation
Target the physical aggravators
eg. (If the pain was occurring after long hours at desk)
– Changes to the desk setup
– Regular breaks
– Targeted remedial exercises during the aggravating activity.
– Other regular exericse
Mental Stress
Determine the mental aggravators
– Volume of work?
– Stress from particular tasks?
– Mindsets and beliefs around those tasks?
Target the mindset aggravators eg.
– Exercises to shift or let go of negative aggravating mindsets and beliefs.
– Setting necessary boundaries and making necessary adjustments to working time.
– Bedtime downramp
– Meditation
– Pattern interrupt
– Change pattern – mindset + physiology
– Meditations
Target the physiological aggravators eg.
Targeted Remedial Exercise
For both physical and mental aggravations, a basic ‘targeted remedial exercise’ routine can be a great medium/long term solution to keep the tissues in much better condition. This can be as little as a few minutes a day of exercise targeted to the relevant aggravated neck or back muscles.
FAQ
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet?
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec sed finibus nisi, sed dictum eros. Quisque aliquet velit sit amet sem interdum faucibus. In feugiat aliquet mollis. Etiam tincidunt ligula ut hendrerit semper. Quisque luctus lectus non turpis bibendum posuere. Morbi tortor nibh, fringilla sed pretium sit amet, pharetra non ex. Fusce vel egestas nisl.
Donec sed finibus nisi?
Curabitur non bibendum ligula. In non pulvinar purus. Curabitur nisi odio, blandit et elit at, suscipit pharetra elit. Fusce ut mauris quam. Quisque lacinia quam eu commodo mollis. Praesent nisl massa, ultrices vitae ornare sit amet, ultricies eget orci. Sed vitae nulla et justo pellentesque congue nec eu risus. Morbi ac feugiat ante.
Quisque aliquet velit sit amet?
Etiam quis blandit erat. Donec laoreet libero non metus volutpat consequat in vel metus. Sed non augue id felis pellentesque congue et vitae tellus. Donec ullamcorper libero nisl, nec blandit dolor tempus feugiat. Aenean neque felis, fringilla nec placerat eget, sollicitudin a sapien. Cras ut auctor elit.
Morbi tortor nibh fringilla?
Vivamus id gravida mi, nec ullamcorper purus. Suspendisse ut nibh sagittis lacus viverra aliquam. Praesent ac lobortis mauris, non imperdiet quam. Praesent laoreet elit nisi, id feugiat ante accumsan sed. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia curae.
Curabitur non bibendum ligula?
Curabitur fermentum nulla non justo aliquet, quis vehicula quam consequat. Duis ut hendrerit tellus, elementum lacinia elit. Maecenas at consectetur ex, vitae consequat augue. Vivamus eget dolor vel quam condimentum sodales. In bibendum odio urna, sit amet fermentum purus venenatis amet.