HolPlus

Disease & Conditions

Headache

Stress Headaches

Headache:

Stress: what exactly it is:
Stress is a feeling that's created when our body reacts to particular events. Stress involves the body's way of rising to a challenge and preparing to meet a tough situation with focus, strength, stamina, and heightened alertness. The situation that causes stress are called stressor, and they cover a whole range of activities right from outright physical danger to making a class presentation or taking a semester's worth of your toughest subject. The human body in general responds to stressors in different ways mostly by activating the nervous system and specific hormones. The hypothalamus, which is present just above the thyroid gland, signals the adrenal glands to produce more of the hormones adrenaline and cortical and release them into the bloodstream. These hormones can cause a rapid speed up in the heart rate, breathing rate, blood pressure, and metabolism.
Stress as a cause of headache:

Stress doesn't always happen in response to things that are immediate or that are over quickly. The stress response may be mainly divided into two categories the fight response & the flight response. Ongoing or long-term events such as coping with a divorce or moving to a new neighborhood or school can cause can also cause stress. These long-term stressful situations can produce a lasting, low-level stress that's hard on people that are believed to be the main reason to induce headaches according to scientific researches. The nervous system senses continued pressure and may remain slightly activated and continue to pump out extra stress hormones over an extended period. This can wear out the body's reserves, leave a person feeling depleted or overwhelmed, weaken the body's immune system, and cause other problems, which may include prolonged painful headaches and anxiety.

Stress management & treatments available:
Stress headache sufferers may acquire skills to identify the stress that triggers their headaches. In most of the cases the stress can be removed or resolved. In cases where the stress is uncontrollable, an individual can learn to change his or her own physical and emotional reactions to stressful situations. Techniques such as biofeedback and relaxation training can really prove fruitful and effective in reducing headache frequency and pain in many sufferers. Other techniques that can help cope up with stress related headaches involves keeping track of headaches, monitoring success and failure of therapies, identifying and monitoring things that may trigger headache, and making and keeping appointments with health care providers.