Tension headaches? The neck trigger nobody treats (physio fix)

Hello, this is Janne. Today I'll cover tension-type headache: the reasons in the background, typical symptoms, and how to treat this kind of issue. At the end of the video you will find exercises for the deep neck flexor muscle group and how to relax the upper neck area.

Tension-type headache is the most common form of headache. Typically there is tension in the neck and shoulder muscles in the background. Tension-type headache typically comes at some point in life, and it might be present in children too - the prevalence is quite similar between males and females. Symptoms are typically not present that often, but when the headache goes to a chronic phase, then you will have more symptomatic days than non-symptomatic days in a month.

Typical criteria for tension-type headache in the background: symptoms last hours to days, in most cases there is bilateral involvement, so you'll feel the issue on both sides of the head; there is typically an ischemic pain mechanism in the background - if you want to see more about different pain mechanisms you can check the linked video. Typical symptoms are mild to moderate - if you get an explosion of pain, that's a sign of other issues, and then you need to seek medical attention. With tension-type headache, everyday sports won't provoke your symptoms.

What are the important factors in the background? There are agonist and antagonist muscles - muscles that tilt our chin up, and muscles that maintain our posture towards flexion in front: longus capitis, rectus capitis anterior, and longus colli. I'm going to show you how to increase strength in the anterior part of these muscles. Exercise and sport overall is the best way to prevent and treat tension-type headache.

Next I'll cover an easy way to palpate the upper neck area and structures there, and an easy way to ease down the tension-type headache. Put your hand on the head and start gliding down - you'll find a bony prominence, then go downwards, and this is an oval-shaped structure made of soft tissue in the neck. When you go down from the middle you'll notice a bony prominence - that is the cervical spine number two spinous process - and these are the areas we want to relax with massage: calm the tightness there, then exercise the anterior muscles. ---