Stressed AND have headaches? Headache help is here...
I know from my own experience that during times of intense stress (like packing to move from Canada to Australia!), I can have some pretty awful headaches. The muscles in my neck and shoulder blade tense up like rocks, and I can have headaches that last for days, no matter how much Advil I take.
But stress isn't always bad. Our nervous system is designed to protect us from threats and danger. During a perceived stressful event, the sympathetic nervous system triggers the fight-or-flight response. This response provides the body with a burst of energy, enabling us to respond to perceived dangers in the environment.
During a stress response, our breathing becomes shallow. We breathe with our chests to get more oxygen into our bodies faster. As a result of this breathing pattern, our accessory breathing muscles - upper traps, sternocleidomastoid, pectoralis major, and scalenes, crank on to bring in more air, giving us more energy.
This fight-or-flight system protects us during short periods of stress. However, we live in tough times, so many of us are experiencing chronic daily stress like never before. And without even realising it, you may be stuck in the shallow, chest-breathing pattern.
Chronic stress can lead to tightness, tension, and knots in the muscles around our necks, leading to headaches. But those aren't the only reasons we may get headaches from chronic stress.
During the fight-or-flight response, our bodies get ready to run or fight.