What's Causing Your Headaches?

Having a mild headache from time-to-time isn’t necessarily unusual, but severe or chronic headaches can blight your life. To alleviate pain and discomfort, it’s important to find out what’s causing your headaches and determine whether there’s an underlying cause.

While your doctor can help you to rule out medical issues, there are other factors that may be causing or contributing to your headaches, such as:

Poor Posture

If you are not practicing poor posture, you’re going to be prone to all sorts of aches and pains, including headaches and neck discomfort. Perhaps you spend all day sitting at a desk working or maybe you sleep with too many pillows at night? If so, you’re inadvertently overstretching some muscles, tendons, and ligaments, while leaving others contracted for prolonged periods of time. This physical strain is a primary cause of headaches but can be resolved by adjusting your day-to-day habits and improving your posture.

Eye Strain

If you’re getting regular headaches, eye strain could be the culprit. Visiting your optometrist and having your vision checked should be a priority when you begin experiencing headaches, as there could be a simple solution. By getting glasses or having your prescription updated, you could alleviate your headaches. Alternatively, wearing contact lenses or having laser eye surgery to improve your vision could be another way to eradicate headaches caused by eye strain.

Stress

Tension headaches are the most common type of headache and they occur when the muscles in your neck and shoulders become tense. As stress is a primary cause of muscle tension, it follows that stress is a major cause of headaches. Being aware of when you subconsciously tense your muscles and practicing relaxation techniques can be a great way to decrease pain and discomfort. Similarly, learning stress reduction techniques can help you to establish healthy ways of coping with stress.

Dehydration

A headache is often the first noticeable symptom people experience when they’re dehydrated. If drinking a glass of water helps to ease your discomfort, there’s a good chance that dehydration was causing your headache. Make sure you’re drinking an appropriate amount of water each day and you could put an end to regular headaches altogether.

Insomnia

If you have troubling falling asleep or you wake frequently throughout the night, poor sleep quality could be causing your headaches. People with insomnia tend to experience more frequent headaches than people who routinely get a good night’s rest. By resolving your sleep issues, you may find that your headaches naturally disappear.

If you’re experiencing headaches, visiting a physician should be your top priority. As well as diagnosing the type of headaches you’re dealing with, a doctor can run tests to rule out medical causes, such as high blood pressure. Following this, you’ll be able to assess your lifestyle to determine whether it could be contributing to your discomfort. Even relatively minor lifestyle changes can have a major impact on how you feel, so it’s well worth adjusting your routine to prevent your headaches from returning.