How to Control Headache due to Stress and Anxiety?

Video – Vlog #13

When a friend of David’s decides to visit friends for first time – since lockdown due to Coronavirus – she got a headache – is this due to anxiety?

How does one control headache due to stress and anxiety?

Have you ever been in this situation, if yes, what have you done to reduce the headache?

Script – Vlog #13

David Logan: Hi, my name is David Logan, the IT Geek here for another week here with Willie Nicol. I’m based here in Annan, south of Scotland, UK. We’re now at week number thirteen now. Amazing, so how are you Willie and where are you?

Willie Nicol: Hi David, I’m very well, thank you. Week 13, I hope it’s not unlucky. I’m based in Loans, outside Troon. south Ayrshire, Scotland UK.

David Logan: Fantastic. This week, I have a question for you, Willie. The question is. I’ve got a friend whom I know quite well speak to on the phone. And this is a lady friend, not a girlfriend. She was saying that she was heading off out for a night to visit some friends and just said before she went out, she had a sore head. Now, she was presuming, I assume she was presuming that’s down to the nerves, stress and the current situation being in lock down in Scotland. The lockdown starting to slowly come out now. Would that be the scenario, a headache, caused by stress?

Willie Nicol: Yes, David. I’m fairly sure that stress can cause headaches. I’m assuming that your friend was going to visit her friend for the first time, possibly a fare wee while, and that the prospect of doing that, perhaps made her nervous, and the physical manifestation of those nerves or stress and anxiety was that she got a sore-head.

David Logan: OK. So for the person that does this, is there anyway they can minimize this onset of headaches?

Willie Nicol: Well, I think they to minimize the onset of the headache, you would try to minimize the onset of the stress and anxiety. I would suggest perhaps that if it was sufficiently nerve inducing to reconsider a decision to go. But what to do is if you feel the headache coming on, is sit down, calm down and relax, as I’ve alluded to in previous videos. Take a moment to clear your head. Decide whether you want to go or not go, and see how that affects your headache.

David Logan: And other ideas. Can you tell me more about them?

Willie Nicol: Well, we’ve done a wee bit of work in the past about stress reduction, and we’ve talked about exercise and breathing exercises, mindfulness meditation, hypnotherapy and so on. So we jump back. If you feel a headache coming on, or your feeling a bit stressed? And the stress may cause the headache is to sit down. Close your eyes, calm your mind, do some of the breathing exercises I explained before, and I suppose you would call it just chill out. And with a bit of luck your head will no longer be sore. If that doesn’t work, you may have to think about getting an aspirin or something, but the very fact you’re going to get an aspirin is diverting your attention from what’s causing this stress anxiety in the first place. Its a kind of displacement idea.

David Logan: So headaches maybe possibly caused by the upcoming event?

David Logan: So you’re saying possibly headaches are caused by the thoughts going through your head?

David Logan: So we go to, as your saying, listen to easy listening music, it can change your thought process, and possibly relieve the headache?

Willie Nicol: That certainly is one way of looking at it. What causes your headache isn’t your stress? Is it your thinking? Is it an external factor? What I’m trying to suggest is that if you feel stressed and you think that may cause a headache is to nip it in the bud by reducing and get rid of the stress and anxiety. Stress is something we all have and is perfectly natural. Anxiety is also perfectly natural. Anxiety tends to be more about something that you’re apprehensive about, which is going to happen in the future. So you’re generally anxious about something that’s going to happen. You don’t get anxious about something that has happened, although you may get stressed about something that has happened, which might make you anxious of it, something that might happen in the future. So if you’re getting anxious about something, then it’s going to happen. Acknowledge it. If it’s causing you any aggravation, as I have suggested, sit down, close your eyes, clear your mind and do some of the exercises I alluded to in previous vlogs.

David Logan: Is there any possibility a headache can be caused by lack of sleep?

Willie Nicol: Not an expert on that David, by any means, but, yes, I believe that can be the case. So .. if you have trouble sleeping or your not getting enough sleep or your sleep is interrupted, that can very well be a precursive for a headache. That again, is probably a topic for another day. The correlation between sleep, stress and anxiety, worry and for that matter, headaches. But all I would re-iterate is that, if you feel anxious about something that’s going to happen, you’re going to visit friends for the first time. For example, in many, many weeks and your a bit worried about it due to the current situation, sit down, evaluate it, assess whether to go or not. If you decide you’re going to go, well, you’ve got to go. If that’s going to give you a headache, you may have to re-consider that decision. But again, there are ways of calming your mind down, as already alluded to and destressing yourself. So take ten, fifteen minutes if necessary, then say “OK. I’m going to follow through there. I’m going to go do that”, or you might decide to pick up the phone and say “Can’t come – I’ve got a headache.”

Willie Nicol: Just to wrap this up. Yes headaches can caused by stress or worry or anxiety. If it is the case, the way to combat the headache is to combat the stress, worry and anxiety and using the techniques of what I described previously. That is one way of doing it.

David Logan: Good. so to summarize, you’re saying tell my friend. Sit down, relax. Go through one of the five options, which we have talked about, if my memory serves me right is week number three. And then the decision is, is it worth going out to visit a friend or do you just stay in?

Willie Nicol: Well, it’s almost like why did they call it a headache? Right. It’s because your head aches, so figure out which making your head ache and stop doing it or avoid doing it or do something else that might sound like self evident, but I just leave it there. Let’s just leave that with you.

David Logan: Good. So that’s us for a another week. We’ll wrap it up. So thank you for your time, Willie. I know you’re rushing off now for another meeting, but to the viewer, great to have Willie on again, great to hear your views on here Willie.

David Logan: If you’ve got any questions about stress, anxiety, feel free to contact us. Any channels which will send out below here, now please we’re still looking for people to subscribe to our YouTube channel, like our Facebook page, connect to us on Twitter. We also have a LinkedIn business page now. So feel free. We’ll be contacting you independently now to try and get these numbers up. Need exposure.

David Logan: Thank you, everybody. Have a great weekend. So it’s bye from me and bye from ..

Willie Nicol: Bye from Willie, the Techno Dinosaur.