Yoga and Head Pain: 6 Ways Yoga Helps You Get Rid of Your Headache
Last updated:
7 November 2021
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How can yoga help relieve your headaches? Oh, let me count the ways:
- It relaxes the muscles around your chest, ribs, shoulders and neck. These are the same muscles that get tight and cause headache symptoms.
- Yoga helps reduce your stress. When you’re feeling all stressed, your muscles “clamp down” on nerves that go to your head.
- It helps strengthen the muscles of your backside, and makes you long and strong; it creates muscular balance. A strong back and a long, strong body helps you have good posture. Good posture, with your head over your body instead of out in front, reduces headaches.
- Yoga gets your circulation moving and that helps move the metabolic (body) wastes out of your body. It reduces swelling which can also be a cause for head pain.
- It helps you become more “in tune” with your body. When your muscles start to complain or your head starts to hurt, you will be able to figure out the cause and correct it.
- Yoga can help reduce your blood pressure, but if you are having high blood pressure headaches, you’d better get to a doctor immediately!
Yoga is a full-body stretching and strengthening movement program with a lot of benefits.
If you take a class, always remember: It’s your body. If a move doesn’t feel appropriate to you, or feels like it will make your head hurt or your headache feel worse, DON’T DO IT. Instead, practice a different movement (pose) or breathing.
So, yoga helps take the pressure off the muscles around your head and neck, and helps you relax, and reduces stress, and improves your breathing (shallow breathing could also be a cause of your headaches by not giving you enough oxygen.)
That’s how yoga can help you get rid of your headaches.
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A note from Kathryn: I am not a medical doctor. I am someone with a lot of experience and training in how bodies get pain and how they get rid of it. The information here is educational and based on my 40+ years as a neuromuscular therapist. If your pain continues, gets worse, or you are worried about it, please see your doctor or a specialist. Your body is worth it.
About the writer
Kathryn Merrow is a neuromuscular therapist with more than 40 years of experience helping people find the causes of their muscle pain and release it naturally. Known as The Pain Relief Coach, she teaches simple, logical ways to understand your body so you can get rid of pain instead of just managing it. Pain is a symptom. Kathryn helps you treat the cause.
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