Disclaimer Alert! Hey, everybody is Doctor Jo and Mr. Bear, and
today I'm going to show you ways to relieve tension headaches. So
let's get started. So tension headaches can be caused by a few
different things. A lot of times it can be caused by tension in
the muscles around your shoulder and neck area. They can be
caused by stress. Sometimes they can be caused by holding your
neck wrong in a position for a long time. So stretches for the
neck and shoulder are great to kind of loosen everything up and
get rid of some of that tension. Some of my favorites for tension
headaches are isometric exercises. Isometric exercises
are when you're activating the muscles, but you're not moving
the muscle. And so a lot of times with a tension headache,
if you squeeze that muscle tight, and then let go, that
helps relieve some of that tension. So we're going to start
off with some isometric exercises. The first isometric
exercise we're going to do is just a isometric side bend. So
with the isometric exercise of the side bend, what your motion
you're gonna do is this, you know, back and forth, but you're
going to use your hand to stop that motion. So, for example,
you can take your palm of your hand, you can take your fingers,
and just kind of place it on the side of your head and in your
temple area. If you have some arthritis in your fingers,
sometimes the palm is better, but I like kind of holding right
there. And so this is the motion I'm going to do, but I'm
preventing myself from doing that motion. And I'm kind of
pushing into my fingers for about three to five seconds. So
starting off with isometric exercises, don't push as hard as
you can. Not 100%. But maybe just start off with anywhere
from 20 to 30%, just kind of pushing in. So see, this is the
motion I'm doing. But I'm stopping myself from doing it.
Pushing in, you might see some of these muscles activate a
little bit, for about three to five seconds, and then relaxing.
You can alternate sides if you want to. So now I'm pushing in
again, this is the motion that I'm doing, pushing in three to
five seconds. And then relaxing. If you feel like that's helping,
sometimes you might feel a little pop or something. But you
might feel that tension relieving when you do it. You
can then turn your head a little bit into that side position, and
then do that again. So it doesn't necessarily have to be
straight up. But if you if you're feeling kind of yucky,
and you have that tension in there, starting here is good.
And then that three to five seconds, and then maybe a little
bit here, pushing in that three to five seconds. And then if you
can go a little bit more. So each time maybe started off, and
you could only go to here and it hurts. But if you push a little
bit, activate that muscle, relax it, then sometimes you can go a
little bit further into that stretch. So you know maybe three
to five times on each side for that three to five seconds. So
then you're gonna go and to a rotation, but the same thing
that isometric exercise. So you know, the the rotation movement,
there is what you want to do. But again, you're just stopping
yourself from doing it. So I'll do it with my palm this time. So
again, this is a motion I'm doing, and then I'm just kind of
pushing into the palm. So I'm moving my head, I'm not pushing
my hand into my head, my hands, just stopping that movement, and
I'm pushing in again. You might be able to see some of those
muscles in there. I'm not pushing as hard as I can into
that palm of my hand. But that 20 to 30. If it feels okay, when
I do it, then I can maybe do 30 to 40. But usually, when you're
trying to get rid of that tension, going much more than
like 50% as hard as you can push isn't really going to help.
Because then that changes the muscles you're doing. If you're
doing less pressure that 30 to 40, you're getting those deeper
muscles, if you're pushing harder going into like 60 to
70%, which you can, then you're going to get those larger muscle
groups.
So as long as it's not painful, if you feel like that helps
relieve the tension, you can do that as long again, as long as
there's no pain. So then the next one to help relieve that
tension, especially with those headaches is a chin tuck.
Because a lot of times we'll get those tension headaches. If
we're on the computer for maybe gaming, playing a game or
watching TV and we started doing this. And then you were we're
overstretching those back ones, we're overstretching these front
ones. We're making everything tight and overworked in there.
So a chin tuck kind of helps reset everything. And that will
help reduce that tension in there. So with a chin tuck, you
might have seen some of my other videos, these are one of my
favorites, they help with a lot of different things, but they
really helped kind of get rid of that tension. So you can use
your finger as a target just by placing it on your chin. Keep
your chin kind of in a neutral position so your heads not back
your heads not down. It's kind of in that neutral position. And
then keep that neck nice and long and lengthen. And then
you're just pulling back away from that finger. And then hold
it for about three to five seconds and then relax. And a
lot of times if you're really overstretched like this, if you
do a couple of these and you come back and relax, you'll see
and feel a big difference that you don't actually go all the
way back to your finger because you're resetting those muscles.
So again, just kind of you don't have to use your finger as a
target. But make sure you're just almost bringing that whole
head back and then holding that for three to five seconds. These
should not be painful. So if it hurts, maybe you're trying to
force it just a little bit too much. You don't need to force
it, you know, I do these every day to kind of help with my neck
muscles, because I've had a neck injury in the past. So if you
just start off, if you haven't done these before, just see if
you can do a little bit of movement. You know, you don't
have to force it back and get a lot of movement. Just kind of
stop there, hold it and then relax. And then hopefully, the
more that you do, you'll be able to get some more motion in there
and do that. But they should never be painful, they should
never make you feel dizzy when you're doing them or anything
like that. So then the next one is going to go into some full
stretches. So again, when you have that tension headache, a
lot of these muscles are the ones that are tightening up and
pulling on everything in there and just really causing that
tension, a lot of times in the back of your head. So an upper
trap stretch is a great one to loosen up those muscles back
there. So if I'm stretching my upper traps on this side, I'm
just gonna sit on my hand. You can do it a couple different
ways. You know, sitting on your hand is not comfortable, you can
put it back behind you. If that's not comfortable, you can
just relax your arm. But you get a little bit better stretch by
holding that shoulder down by either sitting on it or placing
it behind your back, because that muscle is all the way up in
the neck and comes all the way down into that shoulder area. So
keeping it down helps get a little bit better stretch. Then
bring your other hand up and over where your fingers are kind
of touching your ear there. And then just gently pull over to
the side. So I'm filling out stretch all the way up here, all
the way down into the tip of my shoulder right there. And then
this is a full 30 second stretch. Holding that stretch
for 30 seconds, then relaxing and then switching sides. So
coming back over to this side and then pulling getting that
nice gentle stretch and holding it for 30 seconds. If you want
to follow along with me and some real time videos where I'm
holding it for the full 30 seconds and doing the exercises
for the full amount of time, you can click on that link up there.
So then the next stretch is going to be a levator scapulae
stretch. Levator scapulae muscle is probably the one I would say
a lot of times causes those tension headaches. It comes all
the way up in that cervical spine, and goes all the way down
to the shoulder blade or that scapula. And so when we get
stressed or we're doing something, we're concentrating
for a long time, a lot of times we'll end up doing this. And
we're lifting up those shoulders towards our ears kind of thing.
And that's overworking that levator scapulae muscle, and
then it gets all mad and holds that tension and starts pulling
on the back of that head area
there. So you can again, do the stretch a couple different ways,
I have always learned putting my hand on the back of my shoulder
here. And then putting that elbow is much up towards the
ceiling as I can. Now I know sometimes this is really
uncomfortable for people. If this isn't really comfortable
for you, you can put your hand back behind your back or again,
you can just relax it. But I feel like this one really helps
keep that shoulder down, and that shoulder blade down to help
get that nice stretch. Take your other hand and kind of put it
over your head almost like a helmet. So you're reaching back.
So it's not to the side, this time, it's up and over. Turn
your head to about a 45 degree angle or like you're looking at
your opposite knee over here. And then when you pull down,
just kind of pull like you're taking your nose and towards
your armpit. And so you should feel it right kind of on the
back of the neck area here all the way up into the neck here
and then even down all the way into that shoulder blade area
right there. And again, holding that for 30 seconds, switching
sides, doing that three times on each side. I like to alternate
back and forth on each side. You don't have to if you want to
just do them on one side and then switch and do them all on
the other side you can. But I feel like it gives a nice little
break by switching back and forth. And then going into a
movement exercise is just going to be shoulder squeezes or some
people call them scapular squeezes. Again, just to kind of
work those muscles because actually exercising muscles
helps reduce tension. I think a lot of times people think I
don't want to work the muscles because it's going to tighten
them up. A lot of times by getting those muscles, you know,
if you squeeze them really tight and then let go, that's going to
help relieve that tension. So what you're doing when you're
doing is a shoulder squeeze, just imagine that someone's hand
is sitting on your spine between those shoulder blades. And you
want to squeeze that person's hand with your with the two
shoulder blades coming together. Try and relax your shoulders
that a lot of times I'll see people kind of come up and
squeeze and then that's kind of putting more tension on it. So
really try and relax your shoulders. If you want to use
your elbows as a guide. A lot of times that helps if you haven't
done these before, and you're just squeezing back this way
kind of opening up the chest in squeezing those shoulder blades
back. It's really using those muscles, those rhomboid muscles
in between there to bring it in. So if you feel like you're just
kind of bringing your elbows back to get them together.
That's really not it. You want to feel those muscles actually
doing the work. Squeezing back, maybe holding three to five
seconds. If you feel like those muscles aren't working and
you're just kind of using your elbows, you can relax your hands
in front of you and do that squeeze so you know that you're
using the muscles to squeeze it. This is just a little harder if
you haven't done them before. So sometimes it's nice to get that
little guide with elbows, but if you don't feel like you're
squeezing muscles, try just placing your hands and doing a
squeeze like that. And again, holding it for about three to
five seconds. So there you have it. Those are ways to relieve
tension headaches. If you'd like to help support my channel,
click on link up there. And don't forget to subscribe. Where
Bear? Yeah, down there. And remember, be safe, have fun, and
I hope you feel better soon.