- Do you suffer regularly from headaches?
And are those headaches located at the back of your skull?
Perhaps even over your temporals,
and over your forehead?
And does it also sometimes feel
like you're wearing a really tight cap.
They've got this band like tension around your head.
And do these headaches come on
particularly in the afternoon and the evenings
and are being relieved by some pain medication?
If the answer to these questions is yes,
then you're most likely suffering from tension headaches.
Now stay tuned because I'm going to share
some super effective stretching and strengthening exercises.
And if you combine the two, you've got according to science,
the best treatment plan
to get rid of your tension headaches, once and for all.
(upbeat music)
So the tension headaches are really, really common.
And they make up about 78% of all the headaches.
They tend to be more common in women than in men.
Women have a tendency to hold the tension
more in their necks.
Whereas man tension tends to go more to their stomachs.
We've seen explosion in tension headaches recently
in our clinics because of people now working from home,
working on dining chairs and dining tables,
unergonomic equipment, but also having a lot more meetings.
Zoom meetings, Zoom calls, not getting up, not walking about
and sitting in front of the computer like this all day long.
Some other cause or factors to consider
are also not enough sleep,
drinking not enough water,
drinking too much alcohol, missing meals,
but also taking too much medication.
So the medication that you're taking
to reduce your tension headache,
like your Ibuprofen, your Aspirin, or Paracetamol
can actually also induce the headache.
So it's worth having a play around
with your medication as well
to see if that makes a difference for you.
Now, what I'm going to do is I'm going to demonstrate
some really effective stretching and strengthening exercises
you can do at the comfort of your own home.
And science shows, if you combine the two,
stretching and strengthening, you're onto a winner
and it will really, really reduce your tension headaches.
So, the first set of muscles we must stretch
when we're dealing with tension headache,
are muscles called the suboccipital muscles.
And they connect the base of the skull
to the top of the neck.
And there's so many nerves running in this area
that when those muscles get really tight,
they literally compress the nerves.
And that will give you a tension headache.
So what we need to do is sit in the chair, sit upright.
Place two fingers on your chin.
So you're creating a double chin.
Don't put your chin on your chest, create a double chin.
Hold this position.
We're going to accentuate this, but placing our hand
just above our upper lip
and to push our head back a bit.
Don't place your hands on your jaw and push back,
because you might irritate your jaw joint on the side,
the TMJ joint.
So you place off his double chin here
and on the other hand goes the back of her skull.
Yeah?
And I want pulling in the line of my forearm.
Yes, so pulling straight down.
So double chin, accentuate with the other hand,
and I'm pulling down.
Now you hold this for about 10 seconds.
You do five repetitions. I do three sets.
So double chin, push in.
I'm pulling in that direction.
And you should really feel that
just below the base of your skull.
Fantastic exercise to stretch the suboccipital muscles.
So a variation, for the stretch of a suboccipital muscles
is this one.
It might not be as effective,
but it might be more practical for you to do.
Same thing, so place two fingers on your chin,
push your chin in, interlock your fingers,
place your fingers in the back of your head.
You place it a little bit more on top.
So not literally at the back, but like almost on top,
top in the back.
Chin in, and then you just pull your head forward.
And again, you should feel it just literally
at the base of your skull.
So chin in, interlock your fingers,
make sure your arm, your forearms are pulling forwards
and you're doing
that.
Same thing, do 10 repetitions hold each stretch
for about 10 seconds.
Repeat about five times, and do this daily.
This might be a great exercise to do
when you're in your office, just in between Zoom calls
or in between projects.
When you have a few spare minutes,
just stretch yourself this way.
So another really effective technique
to reduce the tension in those suboccipital muscles
is a self massage technique.
And the principles are the same as what we did before
you sit upright and create a double chin.
By creating a double chin, you're opening up
the back of your skull towards your neck,
and your exposing your suboccipital muscles.
You place your middle finger on top of your index finger,
double chin, now you feel the back.
And you're gonna feel two little bony lumps
at the back of your skull, there supposed to be there.
So that's good two bony lumps.
I just dropped down a little bit,
and feel where the skull ends.
That's where those muscles are.
So double chin.
And then what will you do now is you rub back and forth
through those muscles.
I mean, I'm not suffering from tension headaches,
but I can already feel soreness in there.
So it's definitely a great exercise to do.
Double chin and expose the area.
And you just rub back and forth for about five minutes.
And it's a brilliant technique that you can do
between your Zoom meetings
or when you're finishing a project
or when you just go home and grab yourself a coffee or a tea
at work or at home.
Fantastic technique to do.
You can do this all day long.
And if you add a bit of pressure and it's a little bit sore,
you won't do too much damage,
do it for five minutes on a regular basis.
And it will help again with your tension headaches.
What you could also do is apply a bit of heat
on the same area.
So get yourself a hot water bottle and lay on your back
and apply a little bit of heat in the area.
That would also make a difference and relax those muscles,
thereby reducing your tension headache.
So another muscle that you must stretch,
if you're suffering from tension headaches.
It's a muscle called the levator scapula,
and that muscle runs from the tip of your shoulder blade
to the top of your neck.
Again, crossing over that really important area
just below your skull, where so many nerves gather,
and if you've got a tight muscle,
it will compress your nerves
and give you your tension headache.
So let me demonstrate,
stretching out the right levator scapula.
So what I need to do first is
I'm gonna place my right hand underneath my left buttocks.
So that ensures that I'm keeping my shoulder down.
I'm pulling my arm a little bit across to the left.
So it creates even more of a stretch.
So I'm fixating my shoulder.
Now, what I need to do is create a double chin
and turn my head 45 degrees, in this case to the left.
So I'm stretching out our right levator scapula.
45 degrees to the left and placing the back of my hand
back on my skull, and I'm pulling in the line of my forearm.
And now I should feel this stretch just on the outside
of that bony bit of your skull, at the back here.
Just so where you massaged before.
Just there, that area, just more on the outside.
So again, double chin, turn your head 45 degrees,
place the other hand at the back of your skull
and pull and line your forearm and create the double chin.
Actually don't come down like that.
Double chin, and then you put pulling down 45 degrees
and you hold that stretch again for about 10 seconds.
You repeat five times
and you can do this throughout the day.
It won't do any damage if you do this.
Now for the other side.
So what I now need to do is I need to sit
with my right buttocks on my left hand.
That's what I'm doing now.
Yeah, again, depressing that shoulder.
Then I'm going to create a double chin,
turn my head 45 degrees now to the right.
So I'm stretching out the left levator scapula,
placing my hand back of my skull,
have a double chin and pull and line my forearm.
Pull down, pull down, pull down.
Hold the stretch again for about 10 seconds,
repeat five times.
And again, do this throughout the day.
A brilliant exercise you can easily do
behind your desk when you're sitting down
when you have a spare moment stretch out those muscles
and reduce that tension headache.
So another muscle that you must stretch
when you're struggling with a tension headache
is a muscle called the upper trapezius muscle.
And this muscle tends to give a headache,
which is more located around a temporal area of your skull.
So if your pain is more here
then definitely do this stretch.
So the upper trapezius muscle is a muscle that runs
from the base of your skull to the top of your shoulder.
And let me demonstrate to you how to stretch out
the right upper trapezius muscle first.
So what you need to do is
sit with your right buttocks on your right hand.
This again, will depress the shoulder.
That's what you need for a good stretch.
Then I'm going to now tilt my left ear to my left shoulder.
Again, I'm stretching out the right upper trap muscle.
Left ear, left shoulder,
drop my head forward a little bit
and I'll turn to the right.
And I'm placing my hand, the back of my skull.
Not exactly the back, not the side, just in the middle.
And I'm pulling now in the line of my forearm.
And I should really feel that stretch in this area there.
So again, I'm holding this for about 10 seconds.
Repeat five times. I can do this throughout the day.
Let me repeat that again to you.
So I'm sitting on my right hand.
I'm stretching out the right upper trap muscle.
Right hand, tilting my left ear to my left shoulder,
dropping my head forward a little bit,
turning my head towards the right towards the involved side.
And now placing my hand, at the back of my skull
and pulling in the line of my forearm.
And again, you should feel that.
If you don't feel this,
play a little bit with turning your head.
So turn your head a little bit more, turn a little bit less,
I guarantee you will feel this.
And again, you hold this for about 10 seconds
and you repeat about five times.
Now for the other side,
what we need to do is sit on our left hand.
Now I'm tilting my right ear to my right shoulder.
I'm dropping my head forwards a little bit,
turning now towards the left,
placing my hand again on the back of my skull.
Not exactly the back, not the side, just in between
and pulling in the direction or my forearm.
Hold this again for about 10 seconds
and repeat about five times.
I'm demonstrating one more time.
Cause it's quite a complicated one.
Sit again, with your left buttocks on your left hand,
tilt your right ear to your right shoulder,
drop your head forwards a little bit,
turn towards the involved side a little bit,
and the pull and line the forearm.
And if you can't really feel it play a little bit
with turning your head a bit more or a bit less.
And it only needs a fraction of a turn,
often to feel that stretch.
And you hold this again for about 10 seconds.
And you repeat about five times.
And this will help to relieve the pain
that you might feel on your temporals.
Now research has shown
if you really want to create a long-term solution
for your tension headaches is you must combine
the stretching exercises I've just demonstrated to you
with some strengthening exercises.
And the beauty of the strengthening exercises
is they don't have to be complicated at all.
They're really simple.
You can do them from the comfort of your own home
and all you need is a towel or a cloth.
Simple exercises.
The first thing we need to do is wrap this cloth
around your head, and all you do now,
is sit upright, chin in, and just pull towards,
in this case, the right.
Hold this for about 10 seconds.
Yeah, and after 10 seconds you relax,
you give yourself a five second break and you do this again.
And you do eight repetitions of this to start off with.
So eight repetitions, just pulling to the side
and make sure your head
doesn't move forward or backwards.
You're just keeping it in the same position.
So you do eight repetitions after eight repetitions.
You'll give yourself a 20-30 second break.
Then you do six repetitions then you give yourself a break.
And you do four repetitions.
And you only have to do this twice a week.
So that's one direction.
The other direction is you need to pull it
to the other side.
So same thing here.
So only twice a week.
And then all you do is you get a double chin.
You pull your head towards, in this case,
in my case, my left.
Pull to the left, make sure I'm not moving at all.
Hold my head steady, double chin in.
Hold this, it's called an isometric contraction.
You hold it here again for about 10 seconds.
You do eight repetitions.
You take a bit of a break and do six repetitions.
And you do four repetitions.
Twice a week, that's all we need to do.
To the side.
And the last one you need to do is you need to
pull your head backwards.
So upright again. Pull your head backwards.
Hold this again for about 10 seconds.
Do eight, six, and four repetitions.
So the one you shouldn't be doing
is you shouldn't be doing this one here.
When you're putting your head forwards.
That's not what you want to do.
You want to pull to the right side to left side
and you want to pull backwards.
Twice a week, 8, 6, 4 repetitions
with a 20-30 second break between each set.
That's all you need to do twice a week.
So a very common cause for a tension headache
is poor posture.
Many of us spend all day long
in front of a computer sitting, rounded shoulders.
Head tilting backwards, creating a lot of pressure
on these nerves here, which then creates a tension headache.
So I'm going to demonstrate two exercises.
One you can do,
just when you walking to a coffee machine,
where you have a bit of a break.
You can do it whilst you're walking.
Another one you could do sitting on your chair
and those exercises will help you
to improve your posture, sit more upright,
opening this gap here at the base of your skull
and decreasing pressure on those nerves.
So the first exercise we're going to demonstrate to you
is to Y-W-T-L exercise.
Super simple, what you need to do is stand up straight,
make sure your hand palms are facing forward.
And now you're creating a Y.
And you're really trying to pull your hands as back,
as far as possible, you hold this for about 10 seconds.
You can really feel this now
at the, the lower part of your cervical spine
and the top of your thoracic spine
so between your shoulder blades.
Hold this here for 10 seconds.
Now from the Y we move into the W.
So make sure your hand palms are facing forward.
Really pull your arms backwards, pull your elbows backwards.
And I've come into the W position.
Here we are, hold this again for about 10 seconds.
And after the 10 seconds, we're moving to the T.
So YWT now going to the Ts.
You can see I'm now making a T.
Arms up, out wide, spread out, hand palms facing forward.
And really pull my arms backwards.
Or you can really feel those between your shoulder blades.
So hold this again for 10 seconds.
And then from a T move to the L.
And the L is we're placing two arms and the elbows
in the side of our body, and we turn our arms outward.
So we're creating double Ls, essentially left and right.
So hold this again for about 10 seconds.
It helps to straighten out the whole area
between your shoulder blades.
This is a great area to do when you have a bit of a time to
walk to the coffee machine and go down the stairs
when you're away from your desk.
Fantastic exercise, YWTL,
to help with your tension headaches.
So this next exercise is a brilliant exercise
to help you sit upright throughout the day.
Many cases of a tension headache
do have some sort of postural component to it
when people are sitting slouched all day long
in front of their computers.
So we need to do is we need to get you from here to here.
This is called the Brugger postural relief technique.
And what you need to do is first of all,
straighten out your legs a little bit.
So we're creating a stable base.
Then really push out, arch your lower back,
so push out your lower back,
push up your chest towards the ceiling.
And then what we need to do is we need to breathe in.
And then when we breathe out,
we turning our thumbs all the way outwards,
and we're squeezing our shoulder blades together.
(exhaling)
Squeeze together, turn thumbs outward,
and when we breathe in,
we're rotating our thumbs again inwards
and outwards with the same thing,
(exhaling)
squeeze your shoulder blades together,
and really keep your elbow straight
and turn your arms, your thumbs outwards, as far as you can.
And again,
(exhaling)
Arch that back, keep the double chin,
push your chest towards the ceiling.
And really straighten out your whole spine.
Absolutely brilliant technique to do throughout the day,
which helps you maintain proper posture thereby decreasing
most of the tension in the back of your neck
and decreasing the compression on those nerves,
that gives you the tension headaches.
This is something you can do throughout the day.
When you're sitting at your desk,
the Brugger postural relief technique.
I really hope this video has helped you
with your tension headache,
with your posture and make sure you're more upright,
and have less of a headache throughout the day.
If you have any other tips for people,
who've watched this video as well.
Don't hesitate to leave them in the comments below.
If you liked this video, again,
let me know in the comments, give me a thumbs up,
subscribe to my channel.
For now, I'd like to say, take care of yourself.
Take care of someone else as well, please if you can.
And bye for now. Bye-bye.
(upbeat closing music)