Headaches? Physical Therapy Can Help with Your Pain

Many people are affected by headaches everyday. The causes vary from stress, arthritis, poor posture, and other musculoskeletal disorders.

Stress can affect your muscles in many ways. Your breathing becomes abnormal, heart rate increases, the muscles tighten in the chest, shoulder, neck, and facial muscles. This can lead you to slouching, shallow breathing, and ultimately lead headaches.

Perhaps stress impacted your jaw muscles and joints, leading to TMJD (temporomandibular joint dysfunction). These affect the the temples of your head, causing headaches.

If you are in front of the computer, the TV, the smartphone, or just an occupation where you sit for a prolonged time, it can lead to fatigue in the muscles surrounding your neck, upper and lower back. And that leads to poor posture and weakness in those muscles, as well as tightness. These can all lead to a headache.

How Can Physical Therapy Help?

When you come to physical therapy, your physical therapist will evaluate you and analyze your body to see where the pain may be coming from. At our clinic, it is our aim to help reduce and prevent your future pain. Your physical therapist at New Age Physical Therapy will work on direct tissue manipulation and apply other techniques on your body to help relieve the tension in the area of focus. You will be given exercises to help stretch and strengthen the surrounding muscles to increase stability and range of motion. These are done at the clinic as well as for you to perform at home.

By getting treated by the physical therapist and doing the exercises, these will help you with your headaches and prevent future ones from occurring. We do recommend our patients to continue to do their exercises at home even after they are discharged, fitted for their lifestyle as it will help in the long run.

So if you are having headaches, check with your doctor first to get a clear diagnosis then give us a call.