UHAM057

40 * UNDERSTANDING HEADACHES AND M IG RAI N ES being served the wrong dish in a restaurant are all examples of little stressors that can add up for us. Stress is linked with anxiety and worry, and allcontribute to headaches. Tension-type headaches are often called ‘stress headaches’ because they are often caused by muscle tension in the neck. We tend to tense up when stressed, hence the therapeutic value of a massage to relax us.

Health psychologists have spent many years studying stress because it can damage the body and the mind significantly and is so common. If you like, stress is to a health psychologist what cancer or heart disease is to a medical doctor. In the long term, stress can have a suppressant effect on the immune system. In fact, a branch of health psychology called psychoneuroimmunology is dedicated to this kind of effect. Therefore, a stressed person is much morę likely to become ill, especially with viral infections such as colds and influenza. Of course, this is how a cycle can become established: stress causes illness, illness causes stress, and so on.

Identifying sources of stress in your life and trying to reduce stress by meditation, relaxation, or some other method, will certainly do you no harm and will almost definitely do you some good. If you suspect that your headaches are due to stress, or are madę worse by stress, you should make an attempt to relax morę. If you are overworking, you are probably stressing yourself and should perhaps try to step back a little and cut down on the hours that you spend working as opposed to relaxing and enjoying yourself. Your health is morę importantthan work, even if at times it does not seem so.

HELPFUL TIPS

HELPFUL TIPS! HELPFUL TIPS! HELPFUL

One word of caution: if you resort to misusing alcohol or other drugs in order to relax you will storę up other problems for yourself. Try to find other ways to de-stress.

Box 4.

Research in brief: weekend headaches.

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Psychologists and doctors are particularly interested in something called the weekend headache'. This is a headache which, unsurprisingly, occurs at the weekend. People look forward to the weekend to have a rest from work, and it can be very upsetting to find that most of that time is spent suffering from a headache. Why does this happen?