Stress Headache Relief

Stress headaches are an all to common problem for many working into today's fast-paced work environment. They are typically caused by sore muscles and treating those muscles will often relieve the pain. Medication and lifestyle changes can also be helpful in treating the condition. Trying to limit the stress in your life can often curb the frequency of onset of these stress headaches.

Rewmove Stress

• A more long-term approach to eliminating stress headaches from your life is to limit the stress in your life. Most stress headaches are the result of muscle tension in the neck and shoulders from being in a stressed position. If you eliminate the stress, your posture will change, hopefully relaxing the muscles that caused the headache. This may require some significant changes to your life such as changing jobs or ending relationships. If you chronically suffer from these types of headaches these drastic changes to your life may be worth the effort in the long run.

Medication

• For periodic pain relief over-the-counter medications like ibuprofen can be helpful in eliminating pain. Over time, however, the effectiveness of these kinds of medications will wane and side effects, like stomach ulcers, may start to occur. If you find you are needing these medications regularly, consult your doctor to ensure there is not a more serious problem or to prescribe higher strength pain relievers. Often the use of medication in conjunction with the other methods will work the best.

Other therapy

• Massage is a great way to relax overly tense muscles. A full body massage would be preferred as it provides relaxation to every muscle but if time is of the essence a simple neck and shoulder massage will do. The act of massage manually forces the taught neck and shoulder muscles to give and relax. With extremely tight muscles this can be a painful process as it involves applying increasing pressure to the muscle until it releases. For people who suffer from this condition chronically, several massages maybe needed to relax the muscles completely with regular massages to keep them relaxed.

  Applying a ice or heat pack to the shoulders or neck for 20 minutes will reduce inflammation in the muscle and increase blood flow to that area. These packs can be applied multiple times of the day or just when you feel a headache coming on.