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Tip 1 : Don’t ignore the “1 percenters”
- These are the little things that people often overlook, or dismiss as being unimportant or unlikely to be contributing to their headaches.
- In reality, these “1 percenters” can add up to be enough of a nuisance that your head cannot ignore them any longer and suddenly WHAM, say hello to your headache! These are things like:
- making sure you drink plenty of water,
- eating well,
- avoiding too many stimulants (eg. Caffeine, sugar), and
- avoiding eye strain (ie. Having breaks from reading, wearing your glasses)
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Tip 2: Get moving!
- Exercise is a great way to reduce your headache frequency. Exercise helps to get your spine moving, which is great to relieve tightness in your neck and shoulder area – a common cause of headache. What’s more, exercise releases endorphins which help us to feel good, and helps to regulate our serotonin and dopamine levels, both of which have an important role in our nerve health and mental state. The best forms of exercise are things like swimming, yoga and tai chi (think lots of spinal movement), but even walking can be beneficial.
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Tip 3: Sleep!
- Sleeping well ties in nicely with our previous point – exercise helps to regulate serotonin and dopamine levels, which can also help us to sleep better. A lot of people are dismissive of getting enough sleep. How many times have you said to someone “I’m one of those people that has always survived on 5 hours per night”. Really!? That’s exactly all you’re doing: surviving! Don’t kid yourself, as research confirms that adults need an average of 7-9 hours per night to function at our best.
- The advent of fitness trackers (eg. Fitbit devices) that monitor our sleeping patterns and habits is a fantastic tool to use. Don’t live in denial. If you have one of these devices, use it to see how many hours of good quality sleep you’re ACTUALLY getting each night. (look for our other posts in future on Exercise Gadgets)
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Tip 4: Check your Posture
- Neck strain and overload on the top part of your spine is a known cause of headaches. A “Cervicogenic headache” is one that is caused by your neck structures being overloaded, and is grossly underdiagnosed as a cause of headaches.
- Start paying more attention to your sitting posture (how are you sitting right now, for example!), and ask friends/colleagues to help you form new habits by reminding you to sit up straighter.
- Even if your neck is not the primary cause of your headache, reducing the tension in your neck by improving your posture and doing daily neck stretches often helps reduce the severity of your headaches by desensitizing your trigeminal system (a network of nerves often responsible for headaches).
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Tip 5: Chill out
- Okay, so this is easier said than done, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t at least try to relax and de-stress.
- Everyone finds different ways of managing stress. Our previous tip to exercise more is a nice simple way to have “time-out” mentally to help recharge and refresh ourselves.
- Taking practical steps to identify what is causing your stress and to then, where possible, take action to reduce the impact of that situation/event/factor. If stress is a huge contributor to your headaches, counselling and psychological consultation can be beneficial to develop specific strategies.
- There are also lots of apps available to help people de-stress. These range from giving practical advice, to ones that help people devote time to relaxation, doing breathing exercises, and generally practicing self-awareness. (Look for our separate post/s in future reviewing relaxation apps!)
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Tip 6: Keep a Headache Diary – But only for a while!
- A headache diary involves keeping a daily note of headache symptoms, along with possible triggering factors. You can keep track of headache frequency, duration, severity, and try to link the headache with certain triggers, such as food intake, hydration, stress, exercise, time of day etc..
- Whilst keeping a headache diary can really help a lot of people to identify a trigger that they previously were not aware of, I do not encourage people to keep a diary for more than about 3 weeks in total. Why only for a while? Well, keeping a constant focus on your pain and symptoms is not healthy in the long-term, and can actually amplify your symptoms over time. The more time you spend focussing (“dwelling”) on your pain, the more consuming it can become and it can further sensitize your nervous system and therefore your headaches can actually become more severe. That said, keeping a diary for a short period of time only can be a really useful strategy for people to identify what might be triggering/causing their headaches.
- If you are seeking help to relieve your headaches, contact us at contact@aheadphysiotherapy.com.au