Headaches. The very word can trigger one in an instant and ruin your day.
50%-75% of people have them at least once within a year, and 30% will experience a further migraine.
Chronic headache and migraine sufferers know the effects of their burden all too well. Missed days at work, trouble concentrating, poor quality sleep, and a painful list of symptoms that affect the entire body.
Whilst headaches and migraines have seemingly endless causes and triggers, Massage Therapy could be the answer to getting your quality of life back.
The main types of headaches disorders
There are three main categories of headache disorders a person might have the misfortune of experiencing:
Migraine – moderate or intense pain often on one side of the head and presents as a pulsating pain that persists for hours or even days.
Cluster headache – a less common disorder that presents as short but severe headache pain around the eye area, causing redness, tearing, and sinus pain.
Tension-type headache – the most common (and the one we’ll be focusing on) usually presents as pressure/tightness and dull pain spanning from the neck or head and reverberating around the head.
What is a tension headache?
Tension headaches are one of the most common types of headaches a person will experience either episodically (here and there) or chronically (more than 50% of the time). Tension headaches are usually identified by a dull ache on either side of the head, often stemming from muscle tension and tightness along the shoulders, neck, temples, and jaw.
Massage therapy and tension headaches
Different massage styles attack the source of tension from multiple angles, but some of the most effective approaches include the following:
Trigger Point Therapy – works by targeting the sensitive trigger points of the muscle causing tension (or finding the ‘knot’) and applying pressure or dry needling to release the muscle from contraction.
Deep Tissue Massage Therapy – works by using strong pressure and slow strokes to glide through the deep layers of tense muscle and tissue causing the headaches and help them relax and release the tension.
Massage therapy as a treatment
Massage therapy to treat a headache or migraine can be a quick, cost-effective, and efficient way to relieve your symptoms and some of the triggers that may be causing your headaches, such as stress, poor sleep quality, and bad posture.
Massage therapy as a prevention
They say prevention is better than a cure, but headaches and migraines aren’t typically something you can ‘cure’ (if only!) due to the number of things that can trigger them. Massage therapy can act as a great preventative to reducing the number and severity of headaches and migraines by ensuring those pesky problem areas are relaxed, relieved, and revitalised at each visit.
A massage is a natural approach to pain relief.
Related posts:
Psst ... here are the ways you can work with me, in case you were wondering ...
Comments