95% of headaches are one of two kinds: Migraine or Muscle tension.

1.  Migraine Headaches - Have you ever had a migraine headache? 

Listen to the description of the common personality characteristics of people who get migraines and see if you recognize any in yourself.  Common personality characteristics of migraine sufferers are: they are perfectionists, overachievers, people pleasers, have lots of deadlines or have suppressed negative emotions.  These sound like foundations for unrelieved stress, don’t they?

2.  Muscle Tension Headaches - in the neck, shoulders, over the head.  Emotional stress is the most common cause of muscle tension headaches.  You’ve probably heard the expression “carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders”.  That is where many people keep their stress.

I’m going to use myself as an example of someone who did this.   I used to work part time as a nurse in the evenings or nights when my children were little.  My husband was a university student and shift-work meant that we didn’t have to have as many babysitters. 

At the end of one shift, I was at the nurse’s station when a Chinese nurse ran her fingers through my hair, scratching my scalp.  It is a good thing that I was at the desk because I literally fell into the chair.  It was such an incredible stress reliever - stress that I wasn’t even aware that I had.  To this day, one of my most favorite things in the world is to have a scalp massage.

I used to get constant headaches, starting at my shoulders and going up my neck and over the back of my head.  I would also get nagging, toothache-like pains at the base of my skull, where the muscle had knotted up under the skull bone.  I used to go to the chiropractor trying to relieve the pain. Often the pain would be back before I had even got home!

I almost never get headaches any more and I haven’t been to a chiropractor for years.  I’ve learned better ways of releasing stress.  The most effective way I’ve found is Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT.  To learn more about EFT, I invite you to visit my website at www.SherylStanton.com