Could Remedial Massage Relieve You of Persistent Headaches?

If you suffer from persistent headaches and no over-the-counter remedies seem to work, you might be feeling at your wits end and ready to try just about anything to relieve yourself of the pain and misery.

Fortunately, while headaches are something that most of us will experience at some point in our lives, even if we don’t suffer from them frequently, there is one form of therapy that could help relieve your symptoms and enable you to lead a happier, pain-free life.

Remedial massage is a fantastically effective way to combat persistent headaches, and by helping you relax and relieve muscle and joint pain, it could literally transform your life!

How remedial massage can help treat tension headaches

As the most commonly suffered form of headache, tension-type headaches typically produce a strong constant pain or pressure on both sides of the head or forehead, and are often described as a dull ache that is sometimes combined with pain that radiates into the neck, shoulders, and arms.

Commonly caused by stress or musculoskeletal impingement in the neck, shoulders and head area, while experienced by a high percentage of the global population, they can be extremely debilitating and painful for the sufferer.

Using techniques such as trigger point therapy and stretching exercises, a remedial massage therapist will release muscle tightness in the head, neck and shoulders, helping to relieve tension headaches.

What is trigger point therapy and stretching exercises?

A qualified therapist using trigger point therapy will apply pressure to sensitive sore spots of a muscle, often referred to as knots, which will increase blood flow to the area and enable nutrients to relax the muscle fibres. While this process can feel a little uncomfortable at first, rest assured that the discomfort won’t last.

When using stretching exercises, the massage therapist will help to lengthen muscle fibres that had become shortened, which increases flexibility, improves your range of motion and helps to reduce any pain and stiffness that you might have been experiencing.

How else can remedial massage help relieve tension headaches?

The therapeutic benefits of massage in general, have long been heralded, and provided the treatment is performed by a qualified therapist, it can help every muscle in the body relax; effectively reducing the mental stress that often causes persistent headaches. In recent studies, participants receiving regular remedial head and neck massages were reported as suffering far less tension headaches than they had before they sought therapy, and their duration was reduced, too.

If we’re honest, few of us need a reason to schedule a remedial massage, but for those suffering from persistent tension headaches, it provides them with a very compelling reason to seek massage therapy on a regular basis.