Stress Headaches

I know that we all have an idea what stress is like and how we react during a stressful period. Some people can work excellently with the pressures that obstacles bring with them, while other people are overwhelmed by the stress that they are experiencing. In many individuals, this pressure manifests itself in the form of stress headaches.

The primary cause of stress headaches is excessive amounts of stressful situations; ie more than an individual would usually find themselves involved with. Coital headaches can be stress headaches as well. The ability to deal with stressfull situations slowly diminishes and so stress starts to build and stress headaches are usually triggered.

Sometimes, having other types of tension headache can cause stress headaches too, just because we have to deal with these episodic tension headaches (or primary headache) and get on with our daily life. As the pain from the migraine / headache seems to take control of our life, we start to feel stressed and unable to cope. All of the symptoms of tension headaches (including stress headaches) can be controlled safely and, in some cases, prevented from recurring with stress management and the right pain reliever.

There are other ways to ease headaches apart from using medicine. These other methods include: cognitive therapy, behavioural therapy and physical therapy. These alternative methods can be learned from books, night school classes, the local library, the Internet or by arrangement with your clinic or medical doctor. It is well-worth learning these techniques as any method that reduces your intake of drugs is worthwhile, as drugs themselves can also be a cause of headaches.

Cognitive therapy seeks to 'redirect' the effects or symptoms of stress headaches. In this method, the patient is taught to understand which symptoms trigger stress headaches by pain in the sides of the head and how they can affect their response to these conditions.

Behavioural therapy is another way of curing stress headaches. When people become stressed by a particular situation, they try dealing with their pain by taking drugs, alcohol, prescription tranquilizers, pain medications and some people also take illicit drugs.

As taking these medications can only provide temporary pain relief, it is better to teach sufferers stress management as part of a means to build a healthier lifestyle, which will help that person to cope better with their stress headaches and even prevent them reoccurring.

Physical therapy tries using bio-feedback responses. People, who experience stress headaches, are taught to recognize and reduce the amount of tension in their bodies. The treatments that are employed for this method are muscle relaxation, deep breathing, yoga and other self-relaxation techniques. It is easy to understand what effect these measures have on patients of stress headaches, as these methods relax and calm the body.

The various types of therapy used for treating the pain of a tension or stress headaches that are mentioned above are all interrelated. Using all three of these therapies, in addition to headache medication, will provide the individual with a form of relief that will help them for the rest of their lives and not just the short periods when they are suffering from chronic stress headaches, migraine and other types of headaches.