Eliminate your tension headache and neck tightness with these 4 simple exercises you can do right at home! Physical therapy exercises for your neck and posture to eliminate tension headache pain. Read more for links and details!
I seem to be treating a lot more patients lately with complaints of tension headaches and neck pain.
People are spending more and more time on their computers and cell phones with poor posture and these days seem to be a little more stressful than times have been in the past.
Tension headaches are often diagnosed as a headache pain in the head that comes from pain/tension in the neck. Often times these headaches start in the back of the head right at the base of the skull and creep up and over either one half or both halves of your skull.
There are many factors that cause these tension headaches. Anything that causes increased strain on the small muscles in the top of your neck can lead to tension and stiffness in this area. The tension/stiffness from these small muscles puts pressure on nerves that exit your cranium right in this same area. The result of this pressure on these nerves is what causes your tension headache pain.
The most-common cause of tension headaches that I see is computer/desk jobs. We spend long days seated (something we’re not structurally designed to do anyway), we’ve got laptops and phones that are never at the right height, and we round forward at our shoulders to reach our keyboards and mice. It’s a horrible position to be in for your body; let alone for 8+ hours/day!
Luckily, there is a lot of the right stretches and exercises can do to alleviate the tension in these muscles, decrease the pressure on your nerves, and help your headache to feel much better.
In this video you will learn four of the best exercises to stretch these muscles and decrease tension headache pain. These are simple exercises that can be done anywhere with no equipment needed.
Now whenever I treat anyone for anything in my physical therapy clinic, my goal is always two-fold:
1. Treat the pain to help the patient feel better 2. Treat the cause of the pain so it does not return.
That said, my goals with this video are to show you the right stretches to decrease neck tension/pain and the right exercises to improve postural strength. Decreasing neck pressure and pain will help alleviate your headache pain; improving neck/postural strength will keep the headache from returning in the future.
Time stamps to each of the exercises is included below for you convenience. Also be sure to check out the videos below the timestamps for additional help with your headache/neck pain and posture.
0:00 Best Exercises For Tension Headaches 0:30 What is a tension headache? 1:02 Why do you get tension headaches? 2:11 Home Exercises For Tension Headaches 2:31 CHIN TUCKS 3:54 CERVICAL ROTATION STRETCH 5:25 UPPER TRAPEZIUS STRETCH 6:24 SCAPULAR PINCHES
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