Top 8 Reasons For Tension Headaches & Migraines

Are you suffering from tension headaches and migraines that just pound on the forehead, or maybe on the back of the head, and they feel like they just radiate from there? Sometimes it’s just intense pressure on the back of the head. It can be pain on the temples and the side of the head. Even pain right behind the eyeballs, which is also called retro orbital headaches.

Well, if you have any of these types of headaches or migraines, I’m going to cover with you today the top eight reasons for tension headaches and migraines.

My name is Dr. David Middaugh. I’m a specialist physical therapist over at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, and I’ve been helping people with tension headaches and migraines for years. It’s kind of a tricky diagnosis to make and a difficult thing to treat tension headaches and migraines. But it is treatable, and I lumped them together in this video even though there are some differences which I’ll just mention briefly.

They both share root problems, and that’s why I’m giving you these top eight reasons for tension headaches and migraines. Because they originate from similar places, and just to go into the differences. Tension headaches are exactly like what it sounds, there’s typically pressure buildup somewhere in the head, and any of those places that I mentioned forehead, back of the head, temples, behind the eye. You can get tension pressure build up, it feels like it’s tight in the area, or feels like there’s a lot of pressure, and it’s just uncomfortable to deal with.

It can often mess with your emotions, it just makes you grumpy. It just is an uncomfortable feeling. Oftentimes taking over the counter pain medication like Aleve, Ibuprofen, Naproxen or even Tylenol can help that.

Versus a migraine, a migraine is more neurological driven, or nerve driven. And those kinds of medications may not help as much because it’s more of a nerve problem. The ibuprofen and naproxen are more geared towards treating muscle and tendon problem, or a joint problem with a tension headache.

A migraine is more like a nerve problem, and you get nerve type symptoms. So there’s more sensitivity to stimulation with migraines, such as sensitivity to light, sensitivity to loud noises, even emotional sensitivity. It’s just harder to deal with problems whenever you have a migraine issue.

Like I said, both of these problems, headaches and migraines, tend to have root causes. And so that’s what I’m going to cover with you today.

Let’s get into the top eight reasons for tension headaches and migraines.

The number one reason is muscle weakness.

Now there are tons of muscles that come off the neck and go to the shoulders. There’re tons of muscles in the front of the neck that help with swallowing, movement of your head, looking up and down, and all around. But there are some deep muscles to all those other muscles, the throat muscles, the movement muscles, we call them the deep neck flexors and those oftentimes are weak. And they’re weak for a variety of reasons.

It could be other factors that we’ll talk about, but overall, we find people that have frequent tension headaches and migraines, people that are suffering from those problems that we help here in the clinic. They have some overall weakness and then some severe weakness in just a couple of those muscle groups. And when we strengthen those muscles, oftentimes, well, pretty much all the time whenever we see clients, their headache symptoms, their migraine symptoms begin to diminish, and eventually they get under control to where they’re not having to take a pain medication every day or whenever they get a migraine or headache to deal with it.

The second most common reason for tension headaches and migraines is neck stiffness.

This is kind of related to the strength issue that I was talking about just a second ago. But if you take a moment to turn your head in each direction, all the way like you’re looking over your shoulder, so turn all the way to the right turn all the way to the left, as far as you can go and just assess and feel or look with your eyes how far you can go and then think about how your neck feels as well. If it feels stiffer to one side versus the other, than you’ve likely got a neck stiffness problem.

Now I’m looking at joints whenever I’m looking at a patient’s neck in regards to a headache, or migraine, and whenever I find stiff joints, almost always, there are nerves that are being mildly compressed, there are muscles that are spasming just a bit to hold that joint to take some pressure off that joints and protect it, the ones that are stuck. And that’s what’s causing the stiffness.

It’s a combination of the joints being not as mobile as it should be, and then the muscles around there protecting, and then the nerves getting aggravated as a result of that joint not moving and the muscle not moving. There is some sort of neck joint stiffness, muscle stiffness, that’s contributing to that headache and migraine problem.

The third reason is poor posture.

Now, this can be related to a desk job or not, today in our American culture, we’ve got screens everywhere. We’re probably attached to screens, whether it’s a mobile device, a phone, a tablet, a computer, a TV, movie screen, there are all kinds of screens around us all the time. And as a result of that, we’re fixated on a screen for a while.

So we might not have the best posture. And that carries over into our everyday conversations with other people. The way we sit and have a meal, it just the posture becomes our norm or default. And if it’s not very good, it can promote the neck, muscle weakness, upper body weakness that I was talking about in those joints, and muscles getting stiff as well.

Posture has a role in it. But usually if we fix the stiffness, and if we fix the strength, the posture tends to improve. And truth be told, worrying about your posture constantly is not a good idea. It’s better to worry about it just a few moments throughout the day. Typically, when you’re in the worst posture, like maybe when you go sit in front of the computer, or if there’s a time maybe if you’re using your phone or reading books. People that read a lot that might be to really focus on the posture versus worrying about it all day.

Because some people that come into the clinic here, they’re hyper aware of their posture and trying to fix it and, the reality is that it’s just not practical to fix posture constantly all day long, and just it can get obsessive and bothersome for some people. So, yes, it is a contributing factor, but I wouldn’t make it the main thing that anybody fixes to relieve a tension headache, or migraine problem.

The fourth reason and it’s related to the posture is bifocals and reading glasses.

If you’re over the age that you need bifocals or reading glasses. And in case you don’t know what bifocals are, they’re glasses that have an extra lens in the bottom that’s different from the normal lens that serves as a reading glasses so that you can see the two lenses and people will put on the bifocals and the reading lenses on the bottom, or they’ll just get the reading glasses that tend to be smaller and tend to sit a little lower on the nose bridge.

Sometimes they slip down, or they just aren’t as big as normal glasses. So they have to look down. Well think about the posture. If you pull up a book or a screen, people tend to do this, you tend to tip their nose up to stick their chin out to view, whatever they’re looking at through the glasses, the reading glasses or the bifocals, and it puts their head and neck in not the best posture.

Now, that’s fine if you do that for brief moments if you’re just reading something real quick. But if you’re sitting there reading a book, you’re reading chapters, or you’re reading some newspaper articles, or you’re browsing the web, and you’re just you’re there for 10 minutes or more, and your head and neck is in this position trying to look through the bifocals or reading glasses. It is killing your posture.

You got to think about the position, the posture that you’re in that makes sure that your glasses are on right. And I always encourage my clients that are heavily dependent on reading glasses, to get glasses that are different full size for reading. So, go to the eye doctor spend the money if you need to. It’s typically not that expensive anyway. And you might even be able to find some that work for you at a department store like a Walmart or a place where you buy reading glasses that are full size.

You can just try out different ones and get the ones that fits you best. And keep those glasses handy so that you can have something whatever you’re reading at the right level, you’re not having to tip your head or adjust your head and neck posture. So be careful when choosing bifocals or reading glasses. And honestly, I would rather you not get the bifocals just get reading glasses unless you find that it just fits your personal situation the best but go with the big full reading glasses lenses not the bifocals that are small or the reading glasses that are small.

Reason number five is excessive computer use.

Now this this can be related to the glasses thing, that I was just talking about the bifocals and reading glasses, but even if you don’t use bifocals, or reading glasses, using the computer a lot can lead to tension headaches and migraines.

And the reason is this, if the text on your screen or whatever you’re doing, because it may not be text, maybe other things you’re looking at, if you’re having to focus and kind of strain your eyes just a bit to look at whatever’s on your screen, then it requires extra energy from your eyes and your brain to really look in and understand everything that you’re looking at and interpret what you’re looking at.

And just look at your screen right now, if you’re looking at this video on a computer screen, and there’s text around you, how small is the font on the text, and if you had to read it, say go down and look at the description. This video might be smaller text, if you have to really focus to scan the text and read the text. And you do that for hours on end or even just an hour.

It takes a lot of energy from your eyes and what many people don’t realize is your eyes are part of your nervous system. It’s an extension of your brain. It’s an extension of nerves. In the medical field, eyeballs are classified as nerve tissue. Kind of weird, right? Because you can see your nerves that way. But it tires out and exhausts the tissue and when you exhaust nerve tissue, it can affect other tissues nearby. And of course, right behind your eyeballs is your brain.

So if you’ve spent a while straining to read text, or look at small things on a screen, you bet it’s going to tire your brain out and it’s going to probably develop a migraine more likely, or even a tension headache. Especially if your head’s not the best posture, and you’re using reading glasses or bifocals, like I just described. So think about making the text on your screen bigger or use zoom features on your computer screen or mobile device, whatever you’re using.

I use Kindle a lot, so I’m looking at a Kindle device or Kindle app on a mobile device, you can modify the text size on those things, and work to find out those features and learn how to use those features so that you’re not having to strain when you read, you can just scan and go through the texts a lot easier.

Reason number six is not getting enough sleep, or rest.

Your nervous system requires sleep and rest just like the rest of your body. What many people don’t realize is the nervous system, the brain, the nerves, the eyeballs, all those nerve tissues are some of the highest energy demand tissues in the body. Did you know that the nervous system is only about 2% of your entire body weight, just 2%. In other words, for a 200 pound person like me, that’s four pounds of tissue. It’s not that much. Yet, It requires 25% of the oxygen that I breathe in at any given time. That’s hugely disproportion!

So, if you’re not getting enough rest to allow those tissues to recover and regenerate and be healthy, it can strain the nervous system and create aches and pains in different areas, it can create sub optimal use of the tissues, the nerves that connect to the muscles may not operate as good as they can. That can also contribute to the neck weakness, and eventually the joint stiffness as well. So, it is incredibly important that you get enough rest and sleep.

Now I’m a type of person that does not require a full eight hours of rest, in fact, I get uncomfortable in bed if I’m there that long. I’m more of like the six to seven-hour type. And I function very well off that. I think that’s my normal amount of sleep and rest that I need. And there’s even times where I’m physically tired. So if I’ve been exercising for a while, like a couple days in a row, then my body’s physically tired, but mentally I am rested. There’re times where I will just lie in bed, I’ve slept my six, seven hours, but I can feel my body, my, the rest of my joints and muscles need to rest.

I’ll just lay in bed for 30 minutes to an hour. And I will I’ll try to not tax my nervous system as well I won’t be on the screen, I’ll just be there thinking to myself or, or even just trying to not think just trying to meditate or pray for a minute so that I can rest my body. So, it is important to get rest as well as sleep.

Reason number seven is chronic dehydration.

If you’re not a lover of water, you just don’t like to drink water very much. You tend to drink more other types of drinks, maybe coffee, teas, sodas, juices and you’re not getting just pure water on a regular basis, then likely you could be chronically dehydrated, and not even feel it, that might just be your norm.

But if you’re suffering from a tension headache or a migraine, try up in your water intake. A good rule of thumb is if you ever buy bottled water, or you enjoy bottled water even if you aren’t a bottle water fan, but you can have a refillable water bottle and drink five of those in a day. Just make it a point to drink five bottles of water about 16 to 20 ounces a day. So you’re looking at 80 to 100 ounces in one day.

And if it’s a bit of a chore to drink that much water, then what you might do is fill up your water bottle or get five bottles and put them on your counter or on your desk or somewhere where you’re going to run into them often. And make sure you hammer those down throughout the day or if you if you get to the end of the day and you have not finished your water pounded down chug it down and make sure you get all that water in.

You’ll be surprised the difference in the headache and intention problem that the migraine problem that you’ve got it tends to reduce a bit, just give it a try. Now, yes, you’ll have to visit the bathroom a bit more frequently. As long as you don’t have any other issues stopping you from doing that, then it’s okay just allow yourself to do that your bladder will eventually adjust to the metal out of the chair that you’re drinking. And of course, if you’re drinking 7, 8, 9, 10 bottles of water a day, you’re going to go way more frequently. But five tends to be pretty manageable, and your bladder can adjust to that and it’s not a huge deal for most people.

Some people have some bladder issues and I get that, but you have to start to weigh what’s worse right now for you the tension headache, the migraine, or the bladder problem. But give that a shot. It can give you tons of relief, especially if you’re suffering from a tension headache or a migraine on a regular basis. This can allow you to get off a pain medication that you’ve been relying on that’s potentially harming your other organs, your liver, your kidneys, your brain tissue. You want to get off those medications if you can.

The final reason number eight, for two tension headaches and migraines, is not enough exercise.

If you have a desktop, especially if you tend to be sedentary, maybe you don’t have a desktop, but your just not exercising on a regular basis. That’s okay. There’re seasons of life where you might not exercise regularly. But if you’ve got a tension headache and migraine problem, it is important to get out and do some consistent exercise.

It doesn’t have to be every day. But if you even just plan on doing every other day, three to four times a week, gets your heart rate up, get a little bit of a sweat going on, and allow yourself to feel tired a bit. It doesn’t have to be exhausting, just a bit tired, you might go for a walk a longer walk than you’re used to.

Or you may be a gym goer and you’d like to go to the gym and do exercise in the gym or play some sort of activity with family or friends get do some sport or something that just gets your heart rate going. I’ve got small children and I’ll just rough house with the children and play with them the way they like to play, chase them around the house. And I’ll literally look at the clock and I’ll say okay, It’s, it’s 5pm I’m going to play with them for a solid 30 minutes or even 45 or an hour if we can, and that’s pretty tiring. It’s pretty exhausting.

If we just keep going bring the energy, get your heart rate up, be okay with getting all sweaty, just plan on taking a shower afterwards. And that can be your form of exercise. I love going to the gym as well. I’ll go to the gym for 45 minutes to an hour or a few, a few days a week. And that can make a big difference and it helps with getting rest and sleep.

Because if you haven’t been getting enough rest and sleep, haven’t been exercising on top of that, chances are your body gets thrown off its rhythms, it cycles. There are hormones that regulate all that. But if you begin to get some sort of consistent exercise routine, you bet your body tells you I need to rest, and you go lie down and sleep and you fall asleep pretty quickly most of the time.

So, make it a point to get some sort of regular exercise that fits your current fitness level and your schedule. It doesn’t have to be a long time, don’t think that you have to go spend hours in the gym, it could be as simple as a 15 to 20-minute walk, you might just do briskly to get your heart rate up and get a bit of a sweat going. You could be indoors or outdoors. It just depends on your personal situation, but get some consistent exercise built into your schedule.

Well, that rounds out the top eight reasons for tension headaches and migraines. If you thought that this video was helpful for you, and you’re thinking that you might need some professional help, because you’ve tried all these things, and they’re just not quite working the way that you hoped, you think that you might need some extra help from a manual therapists. The way that a manual physical therapist or a specialist therapist can help you out is by hand freeing up those stiff joints in the neck, giving you specifics on exactly which exercises you need to be doing to strengthen your upper body.

Sometimes there are other causes in the upper back in the upper spine. Sometimes there are shoulder blade issues. Sometimes, with these tension headaches and migraines, you might get pain or discomfort going down the arm from the shoulder into the elbow or the hand, numbness and tingling can happen. Some people think they have carpal tunnel problems. Those are all situations where it’s a little bit more than just a tension headache and migraine. And getting some professional help can make a massive difference in clearing up this problem so that you’re not suffering day to day taking pain medications.

Some people go as far as seen a doctor to get pain medication injections, they will get injections into the neck. Or a shoulder problem will develop, rotator cuff problems develop. If you’ve got weak muscles for a long period of time or nerves that aren’t allowing the muscles to work right, that can set up a shoulder problem very often. And then that can lead to an unnecessary surgery as well.

If you have those combinations of problems developing, then it is an excellent idea to visit a specialist physical therapist to get a handle on this problem and get it under control. Now the best way to get started with talking to us would be to go to the top of our website here, find the menu bar and hit the menu option that says cost and availability.

Once you go there a formal pop up, and it’ll allow you to enter your details leave us our details. One of my staff will call you back as quickly as possible to discuss your tension headache and migraine problem and see if it’s the best situation for you to come and visit us. We’ll let you know all the next steps and give you a chance to tiger. Tell us your whole story and ask any questions about our clinic and about your situation. I hope that we can be a part of your successful story real soon. Have a great day.