What Causes Muscle Tension Headaches In The Back Of Your Head

What causes muscle tension headaches in the back of your head?

Here are the most likely causes of discomfort that feels like pressure or squeezing at the base of your skull.

1.  You slept with your neck ‘too straight.’  This happens when your pillow doesn’t support your neck.  It’s more as though your neck is in a ‘hammock’ position.  This strains the muscles at the base of your skull.

2.  You stick your chin out when you are trying to see the monitor or something else.  This happens especially to people who wear bifocals because they are trying to read through the bottom of the lens and the screen is too high.  This shortens the muscles at the base of your skull.

How can you get rid of muscle tension headaches?

1.  Massage works.  Either find a professional massage therapist or do it yourself.  The back of your skull is called the occiput.  Make sure the therapist knows how to massage there before you spend your money.  You can learn how to do it yourself by getting or borrowing a copy of the do-it-yourself, easy to use trigger point book by Claire Davies.

Basically, to do it yourself, press Continue reading “What Causes Muscle Tension Headaches In The Back Of Your Head”

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Get Rid Of Your Muscle Pain Naturally With Healthy Foods And Self-Care

How can you get rid of pain in your muscles and joints?  Would you believe me if I said it’s fairly simple?  All you have to do is…

Exactly what your body wants you to do!  🙂

Truly, your body has certain things that it needs and wants.  When you don’t hand them over, it gets cranky.  And when your body is complaining it makes you hurt.

What does your body need?

Real food.  There are tons of reasons not to eat highly processed food-type items that were made in factories.

And here’s a thought:

If you had the choice of a luscious salad with a mix of fresh ingredients or a piece of cake, which would you choose?  Which do you think your body would choose?  Why?

Here’s another thought:

If I offered you pancakes made with white flour, egg whites and fake maple syrup made with high fructose corn syrup and artificial color and artificial flavor, would you choose that?  Or would you choose whole eggs, whole grain toast with real butter and a piece of fruit?

Which would your body choose?  Be honest.

When we don’t feed our bodies what they want, here’s what we get:  Fat.  Sick.  Old.

Think about your car.  Your car needs the correct fuel to operate properly.  You wouldn’t put milk in your car because that isn’t the right fuel.

You need the correct fuel, too.

Think about what Grandma ate and you will be much, much closer to real food.  (If Grandma had enough money and food, she ate whole eggs, right?  And meat with fat?  That’s the way God made them.)

MovementYou were built to move but most of us spend way too much time sitting.  Bodies don’t like that.

Joints need to Continue reading “Get Rid Of Your Muscle Pain Naturally With Healthy Foods And Self-Care”

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How To Get Rid Of Tailbone Pain Naturally

Why do you have tailbone pain?  Most often it’s from sitting on your tailbone rather than on your ‘sit bones’.

The purpose of those bones in the bottom of your pelvis really is for you to sit on!   But lots of us forget to sit up straight on those bones.

We slouch.  We slump.  We sit on our spines instead of on the sit bones. 🙁

That makes your tailbone very unhappy.  It complains by causing pain.

It takes a couple of steps to start getting rid of tailbone pain.

First, start Continue reading “How To Get Rid Of Tailbone Pain Naturally”

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5 Natural Steps for Happy Muscles and Less Pain

Muscle pain happens for reasons. The good news is that you can get rid of those reasons by taking simple, natural actions. I’ll tell you about five of them shortly.

As a Neuromuscular Massage Therapist, I learned a lot from my clients, my instructors and my own body and pain.  That’s how I know that bodies want to be well. Sometimes they need a little help, but they are able to get better.

Bodies change all the time.  Bodies can heal. Bodies do heal.

That means your body, too.

Bodies are brilliant. Give them what they need, and they WILL get better.

So what do bodies need?

1. Your body needs Continue reading “5 Natural Steps for Happy Muscles and Less Pain”

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Neck Pain – What Causes Pain In Your Neck?

Neck pain can be caused by all of the muscles in your neck.  When they “push” or “pull”  on your spine the muscles can cause pressure on the nerves in your neck.  But wait!  There’s more!

Your neck is also attached to the rest of your body.

That means that muscles as far away as your feet (!) can cause neck pain.  Your whole body is one unit; all of the muscles act together.  Even when you are not aware of it, the muscles in your lower body affect your neck and your posture.

This means the more ways you use your body–all of the muscles instead of only the same ones over and over–the less pain and more “balanced” you will be.

This may sound strange but how about starting off by rotating your feet?  When Continue reading “Neck Pain – What Causes Pain In Your Neck?”

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Massage and Pain Relief – Does Massage Help Get Rid Of Pain?

Massage therapy can be an excellent way to get rid of physical aches and pains.  It’s likely that 90% of our pain and dysfunction is caused by muscles, according to at least one solid researcher, so it makes sense to help your muscles with massage.

If you have back pain or headaches or other pain, maybe you have already seen a massage therapist.  Perhaps it helped  a lot and perhaps it didn’t.

If your massage did not help much, you will Continue reading “Massage and Pain Relief – Does Massage Help Get Rid Of Pain?”

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How To Find A Massage Therapist Who Can Relieve Your Pain

When you have muscular pain and want relief, how can you find a massage therapist who will give you the most benefit for your money?

A nice “feel good” massage has many benefits but not when what you want is pain relief.

There are many types of massage and a few different professional organizations and lots of massage schools.  There are all types of different philosophies, personalities, beliefs and training.   Some massage therapists have a ton of Continue reading “How To Find A Massage Therapist Who Can Relieve Your Pain”

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Neck Pain Relief – Causes and Simple Pain Relief Tips

Neck pain, even if it’s nervy pain, is usually caused by your muscles.  Muscles move bones and that can cause pressure on nerves in your neck.  You can relax muscles that are tight with ice or heat.

The rule of thumb is:  Ice for nervy pain and heat for muscular pain.

If you use heat and feel slightly worse afterward, that means heat is not the correct treatment.  Use ice instead.  You can find more information in the “Heat & Ice” Category right here at SimplePainRelief.com.

Tiny movements are more beneficial to Continue reading “Neck Pain Relief – Causes and Simple Pain Relief Tips”

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Roll Your Shoulders to Relax Your Back and Arms

Muscles get “stuck” in the positions that we use the most. Doesn’t matter whether the position makes you feel good or not-so-good. Muscles become “comfortable” in the positions they’re used to. Doesn’t matter to them whether YOU are happy or not!

Rolling your shoulders is one way to get your shoulder muscles back into balance. It help them get “un-stuck.” What do I mean by “rolling”? Just watch the little video below.

I demonstrate how easily you can start making circles with your arms–2 different moves–that will help the muscles all around your shoulder. This gets the circulation going. It gets your muscles cooperating again. It will help relax your back and “massage” your arms.

Pay attention to the feelings in your shoulders, upper body and arms as you do these movements. Don’t worry if you hear a little “clunking.” That just means there is some imbalance. You may notice that it becomes less over time as your muscles get used to working together again.

If it’s very difficult to do these movements, then only do them to the best of your ability and comfort level until your shoulder muscles and joints become used to moving again. And remember: It’s your body and you always have to make the decision about what’s best for you.

Here’s the video.

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Muscle Pain, Vitamins & Minerals: What’s the Connection?

Do vitamins and minerals cause muscle pain?  They do if you don’t have enough!

You have a smart body and it wants to be well.  In order for that to happen, you must provide everything it needs.  Some of its needs are small–like vitamins and minerals are–but so, so necessary for your muscles (and brain) to function well.

Many vitamins and minerals interact–they work together.  If you are lacking enough magnesium, for instance, that will prevent you from absorbing enough calcium.  A magnesium deficiency will cause a calcium deficiency.

According to Travell & Simons MD’s, you need iron, calcium, potassium and magnesium for normal muscle function.  The B-complex Continue reading “Muscle Pain, Vitamins & Minerals: What’s the Connection?”

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Pain Relief Radio Answers Your Questions About Muscle Pain!

Got muscle pain?  You can get answers for your questions–even the questions you didn’t know you had–at Pain Relief Radio.com.  And don’t worry if you can’t listen live.  The replays are always up within minutes so you can listen at your leisure.

Muscle pain happens for reasons. On this Internet radio show, I’ll share those reasons with you.  I’ll also give you simple pain relief techniques that you can use to become pain-free.

Your body is smart and it wants to be well.  When you have aches and pains, it’s giving you a message:  HELP ME!

You can get plenty of help right here at Simple Pain Relief and also at Simple Strengthening.com.   At Simple Strengthening, you can discover how to exercise easily in your bed!  You’ll also find out which are the most important muscles to strengthen.  Hint:  They’re not in your chest.

Now you have another option for natural, simple pain relief information.  It’s at Pain Relief Radio.com.

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Get Rid of Your Muscle Pain by “Break” Dancing!

Muscle pain starts when we stop moving.  When you were a little child you were always moving.  You used all of your muscles all of the time…unless you were asleep.   Maybe even then.

As you grew you stopped using all of your muscles and that was the start of aches, pain and dysfunction.

Here’s a guest post from my friend Gini Maddocks.  She’ll explain why “break” dancing will help you get rid of your muscle aches and pains:

Do you take breaks during your busy day?

You should.

Research shows that the human brain is more efficient when allowed to rest in intervals.

Try this:
Turn on upbeat, familiar music–the kind you like to dance to.

Now let yourself Continue reading “Get Rid of Your Muscle Pain by “Break” Dancing!”

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Back Pain? Your Stomach Muscles Can Cause Pain In Your Back and Massage Can Help!

If you have pain in your back it might be from muscles on the back side of your body.

Or…it may be from the muscles on your abdomen!  Your belly is the “front of your back.”

Today a client told me that she had a great weekend stretching and straining and balancing on a ladder to trim, prune and clean up her yard.  She said it looked beautiful!  And she felt fine until she sat down.

When she tried to get up, her back from hip bones to shoulder blades went into spasm and tightened up!

She tried to press into her muscles to relax them the best she could but basically she had spent the last two days in bed.  She was very uncomfortable.

I warmed, massaged and pressed into the tight muscles along her spine for a while.  They were very tender but they didn’t seem to be releasing or getting better even though she said a few times, “I think you’re on the cause!”

So I suggested we work on the muscles on the front side of her body.  The right side of her abdomen was fine; no pain and no referrals.

The left side of her abdomen was “on fire” when I stretched the muscles on the soft abdomen.  Her ribs were “on fire” when I pressed into the muscles that ran up from her belly.

For whatever reason, the muscles on the left side of her abdomen had spasmed or “tightened up” and they were causing her back pain.  Even though Continue reading “Back Pain? Your Stomach Muscles Can Cause Pain In Your Back and Massage Can Help!”

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Carpal Tunnel Pain Relief

If you are suffering with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, I have some excellent options for natural help for you.

What is “natural” help?  It means working WITH your body to relieve your symptoms.

What are symptoms?  Your pain, tingling, numbness, headaches, sleeplessness, knots in your back and more; all of those are symptoms.

Your doctor may say, “Oh, a nerve is being pinched.  That what’s causing your pain.”  Yes, but WHY?

There is always a reason for our symptoms.  There is always a “why.”  Let’s get rid of the “why’s.”

Here’s how you can find WHAT natural steps you can take to get rid of your pain:

1.  You can listen to Carpal Tunnel Radio.  I pack each episode with as much information as I can to help you become pain-free naturally.  You can click on that link.

2.  Another option is Carpal Tunnel Pain Relief.  It’s loaded with articles that cover lots of the causes of your symptoms.  You can discover WHY you hurt and the natural steps you can take to get rid of your pain.

You have a smart body.   It wants to be well.  It needs your help.  You must take action.

You can have carpal tunnel pain relief naturally.

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Pain Happens for Reasons and Therapeutic Massage Can Relieve Pain

Back pain, migraines, hip pain, headaches, that “knot” in your back.  Those are all symptoms.  Something caused those symptoms.

If you can get rid of the something, you will get rid of the pain.

Now, sometimes a baby is born with a structure that is a bit different than usual and may have asymmetries (different leg lengths, for example, or upper arms that are shorter than average) which can make it more challenging to avoid pain and dysfunctions (not functioning easily and correctly.)   So, some of us start off with more to deal with.

But sometimes a little creativity and an understanding of the roles of muscles can help those people to feel better.

Others may have an injury or accident in childhood or later which can also be a cause of pain and symptoms.  You have pain but sometimes the doctor says:  There is nothing wrong; all of your tests are fine.

That is GOOD NEWS!

Why?  Continue reading “Pain Happens for Reasons and Therapeutic Massage Can Relieve Pain”

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