5 KEYS TO SOLVING THE TOP 3 CHRONIC HEADACHE SYMPTOMS

Chronic Headaches are robbing you of your ability to fully enjoy and participate in life. When you experience headaches it’s challenging if not impossible to fully be present and perform at your best at home, at work, with family, and with friends. 

Let’s explore how to start solving your headaches, even if nothing has worked so far. Every chronic challenge like headaches is a sign of imbalance in the body. 

Chronic headaches are one of the most debilitating challenges that anyone can face on a regular basis. They interfere with just about everything you want to do, need to do, and have to do. They just plain interfere and disrupt the quality of your life. 

From work to relationships to the ability just to be present and engaged with family and friends. Chronic headaches rob you of so much.

I WANT TO SHOW YOU HOW TO OVERCOME CHRONIC HEADACHES

When I was 18 years old, many decades ago, I was in a head on car collision. Initially, outside of 30 stitches to my forehead I didn’t think I suffered any injuries. It was months later that I was experiencing daily neck pain, headaches, and low back pain. I can’t imagine what my life would have been like had I not found a solution to my problems.

I had difficulty focusing for more than a few minutes and the chronic pain was exhausting. 

THE KEYS TO SOLVING CHRONIC HEADACHES

You might be puzzled at the top 3 chronic headache symptoms! I mean isn’t it obvious that the only symptom that matters is a headache?

Headaches are unique from person to person. How we each experience pain and how we describe it to others is unique to us. Pain is a feeling that is difficult to relate to….until….you are experiencing it.

  • Then nothing else matters much until you get relief. 
  • Nothing is as easy with pain as it is without it.
  • Having fun is much more challenging in pain. 
  • Pain is exhausting.
  • Pain is the thief that keeps robbing you day after day.

HERE ARE 3 TOP SYMPTOMS OF CHRONIC HEADACHES

How do your headaches show up for you? Do you wake up with them? Do they come on as your day progresses? Are there stress triggers that seem to cause your headaches?

Keep in mind that these differ a bit from Chronic Migraines or Chronic Cluster Headaches. 

  1. The Pain tends to be on both sides of your head.
  2. The Pain is often in the back of your head and neck.
  3. There is a steady ache.

In addition to the top three here are two more common symptoms

  1. Your skull is tender
  2. The Pain feels pressing or tightening

It’s quite likely that you describe your headache symptoms quite differently. That’s ok, there’s no right or wrong here. 

What’s interesting is that in the vast majority of headaches the cause actually isn’t in the head. You might perceive the pain as being in your head but most often it originates somewhere else.

THE KEYS TO SOLVING YOUR CHRONIC HEADACHES

You have to be a bit of a detective to solve your chronic headaches. You can do it! Take a minute and imagine what it would be like to be headache free day after day. 

What would be different in your life? What would you be able to do that you either can’t do now or that you’d be able to do better or with more enjoyment? 

Here are my top 5 Keys to Solving Chronic Headaches

Most of these will be much easier to figure out when you have a headache but some will be present even without one.

  1. Stand up and look down at the floor, bending only your neck. 
    1. Does that bother your neck or increase your headache? 
    2. Does your neck feel stiff, tight, or painful?
  2. Stay standing and look up at the ceiling.
    1. Does that hurt your neck or increase your headache?
    2. Is your neck stiff or uncomfortable?
  3. Use your fingers to push into the base of your skull above your neck.
    1. Does it feel sensitive or tender?
  4. Use your fingers to push into the muscles at the very top of your neck.
    1. Is it tender, sensitive, or painful?
    2. Do any points increase your headache?
  5. Sit or stand looking straight ahead. Let your shoulders relax and drop down.
    1. Were you able to lower your shoulders?

If you answered yes to any of these questions that’s a good sign that your headaches are actually originating in your neck. The majority of headaches are caused by irritation to nerves, muscles, and Dural tissue in the neck.

How could that be? Here is one explanation.

Between the base of your skull and the top two bones in your neck are 3 pairs of nerves. They go into the skull:

  • One pair, right and left, goes into the back of your head
  • One pair, right and left, goes into your temples
  • One pair, right and left, goes to your forehead right above your eyes

Chronic irritation, pressure, and inflammation of these Occipital Nerves is one very common cause of chronic headaches.

Your upper neck is also home to a very critical area of your nervous system, the Brainstem. This is the control center for heart rate, respiration, muscle tension, digestion and much more. 

When the Brainstem is put under tension from tightness and misalignment in the neck it fires off the Stress Response. Look at what the stress response does and see if that doesn’t seem like it would result in headaches.

The upper neck is home to some very small muscles responsible for tipping, bending, and turning your head. Small fibers of these muscles attach to the covering of the spinal cord called the meninges or dura. Spasm of these muscles causes tension in this exquisitely sensitive tissue.

THE SOLUTION

The solution to your headaches lies in your neck and the critical brainstem in the upper neck at the base of your skull. To overcome headaches, you must:

  1. Restore balance to the spinal bones of the neck, especially the upper neck.
  2. Promote a normal curve in your neck to reduce the stress on your neck muscles.
  3. Learn to avoid the postures that trigger spasm of the delicate upper cervical muscles.
  4. Learn how to change your position and movement to reduce neck tension.
  5. Learn breathing patterns that do not chronically activate your neck and shoulder muscles. 

THE STRESS RESPONSE

How you breathe can either promote relaxation or can drive tension, muscle spasm, and pain. When you breathe improperly it causes problems like:

  • Breathing more from the upper chest and shoulders that drives tension in the shoulders and neck
  • Increase muscle tension 
  • Increased inflammation and pain
  • Reduced quality of sleep leading to increased pain and anxiety

THE KEY TO RESOLVING YOUR HEADACHES

You must find a way to restore the curve in your neck, get all the neck bones moving and off of those occipital nerves, and learn to breathe to turn off the Stress Response and turn on the Vagus Nerve. 

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