Tension Headache Exercises. Stress Headache Relief in 4 Minutes.

Tension headaches are the most common type of headache and they tend to cause an ache like a tight band around the head or pain at the back of the skull that sweeps forward. But they can respond quite well to exercises that relax the right muscles and release the right neck joints, so let's do that right now. Before we start, just be aware that there are other types of headaches, like migraines, cluster headaches and more serious types, so don't do any exercise that hurts. Start off just doing a little and see how you respond and see your doctor if pain persists. Start off by rubbing the base of your skull from ear to ear in a circular motion with your thumbs. The huge amount of neck muscles attach here and the nerves that supply your head with pain sensation pass through these muscles, so tension in these muscles can irritate the nerves and cause headaches. Rub for about 30 seconds with medium pressure to relax the muscles and increase their blood flow. Next, do the same for the temporalis muscle, which is a jaw clenching muscle on the side of your head. Let your jaw sag open to relax your jaw muscles and rub over the whole muscle for 30 seconds with your fingertips. Work just above your cheeks and then the entire temple region. Then move on to the main jaw clenching muscle, the masseter muscle. Push on the front of the muscle as you slowly open and close your mouth. You'll often find a tender point just below the cheekbone as you open your mouth right up, and another tender point just above where the muscle attaches to your jaw. This muscle can be very tender if you've been clenching your jaw without realizing it. Next, put your back, pelvis and head up against the wall with your chin up and then lengthen the back of your neck along the wall without lifting your head off the wall. Repeat this nodding motion slowly for 30 seconds, touching the wall the whole time with your head and pausing briefly each time in the longest neck position. This mobilizes the neck joints and stretches the neck muscles that get tight due to forward head posture and looking down at devices all day. Now let's do some movements to the side. Put one hand behind your back, tuck your chin down, lean your neck towards the opposite side, look down at your feet and return. Do this five times slowly on each side. This releases the neck joints in a different direction and stretches the muscles running up the side of your neck. To finish up, imagine that you're going to tilt your head to the side but resist with your hand firmly for five seconds so that your head can't move. Do the other side too. Then imagine that you're going to rotate your neck to look over your shoulder but again resist the motion with your hand firmly for five seconds. Do the other side to finish the first round and then repeat all four directions once more and you're done. This technique releases any upper neck joints that might be irritating the upper occipital nerves. Tension headaches often come from just being tense when we're stressed but they can also come from just being inactive because muscles like to move rather than holding one position for hours so movement during the day is important. In fact exercise number three and exercise number four, the nodding and the side motion are great users prevention but tension headaches can come from poor posture too. The weight of the head, forward of the body, overworking the neck muscles. So if that sounds like you, I'll leave a link below to a video on how to improve your posture. Anyway there you go, I hope you liked the video. If you did, please consider liking and subscribing because it always really helps and let me know how you go in the comment section below because I like to read that stuff. Okay, cheers.