Headaches are one of the worst physical annoyances in the world. But sometimes, headaches for some people can completely interrupt the daily routine of your life with extreme sensitivities to light, noise and other symptoms like nausea, fatigue and dizziness.
Well we've got some good news - there's plenty of ways to prevent headaches before they even occur. Here are some of our expert tips to avoid being sidelined by these annoying occurances:
1. SLEEP
Sleep deprivation is one of the major factors in the occurrence of a headache. In today's world, we tend to sit on our phones late at night without protection. The blue light that emits from these devices acts as sun to our bodies, causing the body to create less melatonin, the sleep hormone, keeping us awake or messing up are circadian rhythm. It has been found that the more melatonin that is produced by the body for rest, the more likely you are to not experience headaches.
To make sure we give our bodies the maximum amount of melatonin, we tell our clients to try and keep a consistent sleep schedule, refrain from caffeinated beverages at least 6 hours before bed, and refrain from any activity on any blue light emitting device, such as your phone, without using blue light protectant glasses for 2 hours before bed. This way, we can shoot for sleeping along with our REM cycles where the more REM sleep you get, the more our brain repairs and files away information from the previous day, thus making us feel fresh when we wake up.
2. HYDRATION
Dehydration is another key contributor to headaches. Dehydration causes the tissues of your body, including your brain's connective tissue to dry and contract due to the lack of water. When these tissues contract, they pull away from your skull and place pressure on your nerves causing headaches. To combat this, we suggest that you drink at a minimum half your body weight in ounces of water per day, but as athletes we suggest 2/3rd's of your body weight in ounces of water per day to keep your cells hydrated and ready to work. Also for added benefit, try adding electrolytes for an additional hydrating boost. Check out our A11 Performance Blog Nutrition Series for more information on how to do this.
3. Stress Management
Excess stress triggers the fight-flight-or-freeze reaction in your brain caused by an adrenaline hormone called epinephrine. This hormone increases your blood pressure and causes inflammation, which the brain processes as coming from itself. That’s why there’s a pounding in your head when you’re completely overwhelmed.
You can’t always remove yourself from a stressful situation. But, there are ways to manage. Regular exercise, yoga, mindful meditation and deep breathing, even for just short periods of time, work wonders. Taking up a hobby can even give you an outlet away from stressful situations.
4. Posture
Poor posture can cause increased tenson in your upper back, neck, and shoulders, leading to a headache. Chiropractic work can help ease these pains, but unless we address the main issue of posture and muscle irregularities, these 'quick fixes' won't have lasting impact.
We suggest that if you work at an office job, where you are slouched at a computer for most of the day, try bringing your computer to eye level, preferably a standing desk. Move your shoulders down and back, while sitting with upright posture throughut the day. Try to move around as much as possible throughout the day and check out National Pitching's Block 3 - Body Work Exercises to do to maintain balanced posture for athletic performance.
5. Pliability and functional fitness
Functional fitness is key for all-around headache prevention, this includes total-body pliability. On the deep-tissue front, maintaining pliable pectorals, middle traps, upper traps, suboccipital muscles aid in the prevention of rounded shoulders that force tension at the base of the skull.
Additionally, adding in deep-tissue work with inflammatory reduction and management, like reducing gout, as well as pairing our other tips can reduce the susceptibility to most headaches.
BOTTOM LINE
Headaches aren't good and don't feel good, however, they are not unmanageable. Hydration, sleep, managing stress, sitting up straight and functional fitness with pliability can reduce these headaches.
Keep it simple. Your brain will thank you later.
