Are headaches a symptom of anxiety? Yes, they absolutely are, they are caused by muscle tension and I have some great tips that will really help you to relax those stress headaches.
I’m often asked, “Are anxiety headaches a thing? Is that possible? Can anxiety be the cause for all these headaches that I’ve been having?” And I say yes, Butterfly, absolutely. Anxiety can be exhausting. And it can be hard to get off the merry-go-round of thinking too much (or even obsessing) and this all feeds the muscle tension.
Related: Space between your brain cells meditation
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Anxiety is a massive cause of headaches and it can cause headaches all over your head and in different places and at different times.
I used to get the band around my head, I felt like I had this band that was like pressing in on my head.
I’ve had throbbing temples, I’ve had headaches behind my eyes, headaches in the back of my neck, sinus headaches due to anxiety.
Are headaches a symptom of anxiety? I’m here to say yes: basically any type of headache sensation that you’re experiencing, anxiety can definitely cause that.
Why I say that is: muscle tension is one of the biggest anxiety symptoms that people have.
People hold tension in places that they don’t even realize that they’re holding tension.
You don’t need to know that you’re holding tension for it to be affecting and even when you feel like you’re relaxing and letting all the tension go, you can still be holding it in places.
And you’ve got big muscles and little muscles and tiny little minute microscopic muscles that are everywhere including all over your head and all over your scalp.
So, if you have some tension and you’re coupling that with perhaps repetitive work or desk work, you’re definitely wearing down and putting extra tension on those muscles which, yes, can definitely lead to an anxiety headache.
Are headaches a symptom of anxiety? Yes. But it’s okay. It’s all good.
Just like any other symptom of anxiety, it’s completely able to be resolved naturally and without any need for painkillers.
You just need a little bit of patience and a little bit of time and a little bit of know-how. So, I recommend three steps for getting rid of nasty anxiety stress and tension headaches.
Step 1: Drink water and take magnesium is you’re asking “Are headaches a symptom of anxiety?”
The first is to drink more water.
Most of us are guilty of not drinking enough water.
I know that there are days when I certainly don’t drink enough water and at the end of the day, I almost always will have a headache and if I look back over what I’ve had to eat and drink through the day, those are the days that I’ve normally had too much coffee or too much tea or too much soft drink which dehydrates the body and I haven’t had enough water which has caused all of my muscles to cease up and become really cross with me and give me a headache.
When I find the error of my ways and decide to increase the amount of water that I’m drinking, I also take a magnesium supplement as well, as magnesium works wonders for relaxing your muscles and relaxing the tension.
If you experience migraines – and I mean migraines are separate from an anxiety and stress headache – magnesium can really help migraines as well.
Stress and tension can feed into a migraine.
Migraines can feed into stress and tension which can give you a stress and tension headache.
So, everything is all interlinked and magnesium is a fantastic way to help relieve, no matter what sort of headache you’re getting simply because it helps to relax those muscles, especially if you’re asking are headaches a symptom of anxiety.
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Step 2: Ice on the neck reduces inflammation
The second thing that I recommend is to put an ice pack onto the base of your neck – at the back of your head at the base of your skull.
An ice pack will deal with inflammation in the blood vessels – it’s this inflammation that gets you asking are headaches a symptom of anxiety.
So, the blood vessels that deliver blood up into your scalp and into your muscles and up into your head area get constricted when you’re stressed up in your neck and in the back of your neck.
So, you want to put an ice pack on the back of your neck because it will help to open up the blood vessels due to reducing the inflammation and once you’ve reduced the inflammation there and you’ve used the cold pack, you are ready for the third step.
Step 3: Alternate the cold compress with a warm compress
After 5 minutes of having the cold compress on your neck, alternate it with a warm compress such as a wheat bag.
Heat relaxes the muscles and allows the blood vessels to deliver more blood flow to your neck, to your shoulders, to the muscles on your head and your scalp.
Then you just alternate the cold pack for 5 minutes and then the hot pack for 5 minutes and then the cold pack and then the hot pack.
You do that for about 20 minutes before just taking all the hot and cold packs off and just resting and making sure that you’re continuing to drink the water, all the while taking your magnesium supplement as well.
This will decrease all of the stress and tension, will allow the blood flow to return again and reduce your headache naturally – you will no longer be asking are headaches a symptom of anxiety!
So those are the things that will really help you with resolving a stress and anxiety headache completely naturally, completely without any pain killers and believe me, it works. So, next time you do get a stress and anxiety headache with tension, definitely give these tips a try.
Download my free Space Between Your Brain Cells meditation, which will allow you to bring space and energy into your brain which gives you just the energetic room that you need to allow stress and tension to melt away.
Space Between Your Brain Cells is great when you feel you’ve been pushed to your very limit, you feel like you might snap and go crazy if you’re pushed one step further.
So it’s a great thing to listen to in those moments when you feel like you might actually be going crazy. It gives you the opportunity to bring that space in, let you think your thoughts, think a thought through from start to finish and allow everything to relax and just float smoothly up in your brain area.
Love + light
Eva xo