As far as headaches go, most common ones are the tension headaches, with pain being felt around the whole head or in a particular spot, such as at the back of the eyes or at the base of the skull. There are a lot of factors that contribute to tension headaches such as anxiety, depression, poor posture, stress, and your sleeping pattern can also play a significant role. Headaches should not be overlooked as they can often be signals of a severe medical condition. Such as a damaged blood vessel or perhaps even a tumor.

Writing it down in you headache diary will help in distinguishing this. It will also help you establish if it is specific foods or stress at work giving your headaches, taking place 4 to 12 hours after you have eaten a triggering food. Furthermore, you want to give your headache a rating based on severity like 1 to 5 points, one referring to slight tension and discomfort and five being a disabling migraine. Only you can determine for yourself the severity of the pain you are going through. There are various tension headache solutions ranging from acupuncture, chiropractic and other alternative treatments which are well known among those who suffer from tension headaches. The Journal called “Headache” published a survey of about 110 people who were sufferers of frequent tension headaches. Only 41% of them believed alternative treatments and therapies had any benefit.

At the Harvard teaching hospital, named Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, have recently conducted placebo-controlled studies of chiropractic impacts, and acupuncture on tension headaches. One particular study even concluding that out of 29 people suffering from various forms of tension headaches, just one session of acupuncture lessen the total number of days, when they were suffering from headaches in comparison with the placebo studies where false acupuncture was performed. Nevertheless, on a separate research on headaches caused due to tensions, 39 of them had no convincing proof that they had gained from acupuncture. Whereas studies conducted on over 150 students at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, demonstrated that chiropractic spinal manipulation for a six-week period showed same amount of improvements. Even after four weeks has lapsed after the treatment people who had received the therapy showed a statistically reduction in the headache frequency and intensity.

BIDMC also concluded some natural remedies for a tension headache were equally effective, like Tiger balm, which is also applied to help in relieving muscle pain. It contains cajaput, camphor, and menthol resulting in a form of aromatherapy. Studies carried out on 57 people compared Tiger balm, used by applying it on the fore head, against a placebo ointment that that smelt of mint essence. Tiger balm proved to be more successful in over 60% of the case studies even in comparison with acetaminophen (better known as Tylenol).

In the pursuit of tension headache remedies, there is also a short list of supplements and herbs you should avoid. Kava, which is prescribed as a muscle relaxant and will help ease stress has not been confirmed to decrease headache tension or increase muscle relaxation. Its use has also been connected with very serious liver damage. As always, use caution and consult a doctor before using any natural  or herbal remedies.

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