Stress is felt by everyone from time to time. Sometimes stress is a good thing in that it helps us stay alert and avoid danger. Our bodies are designed to feel stress and react to it. However, when stress is overloaded onto the body, illnesses and headaches, especially migraines, can be the result. Therefore, a good way to prevent migraine headaches is to deal with and reduce stress. To do this, we must first identify the culprit.
WHAT IS STRESS?
Stress is the reaction to any change that causes adjustment or response. The key is learning to control the reaction to stressful situations. Stress is a reaction that causes a person to change or adjust to their environment. There are many triggers that cause stress. Here are some of the most common ones:
• Death of a loved one
• Crowds
• Confrontation
• Heavy traffic
• Marriage
• Pregnancy
• Divorce
• Deadlines
• Legal problems
• Job loss
• Moving
• Accident
• New job
• Retirement
• Financial problems
• Illness
When you cannot figure out exactly the cause of the stress, knowing the warning signs can be of help. Once you can identify the warning signs, you learn how your body reacts to stress, and then you can formulate a plan to reduce it.
THE WARNING SIGNS OF STRESS
When the body gets stressed, there are physical, emotional, and behavior warning signs. Some of the most common are:
Emotional Warning Signs:
• Anger
• Inability to concentrate
• Mood changes
• Sadness
• Unproductive worry
Physical Warning Signs:
• Stooped posture
• Sweaty palms
• Chronic fatigue
• Weight gain or loss
Behavioral Warning Signs:
• Over-reacting
• Acting on impulse
• Using alcohol or drugs
• Withdrawing from relationships
• Changing jobs often
WHAT CAN BE DONE TO REDUCE STRESS AND MIGRAINE
Since stress can be a cause for migraine headache, it is important that patients learn how to identify the stress, and learn ways to cope with it so that stressful situations will not cause the onset of migraine. There are many ways to cope and reduce stress. Here are just a few, but the list can go on.
• Lower your expectations: accept that there are events you cannot control
• Ask others to help you
• Engage in problem-solving
• Express stressful emotions but be assertive instead of aggressive. State your feelings, beliefs, opinions without getting angry, belligerent, or passive.
• Maintain emotionally supportive relationships and emotional composure
• Directly attempt to change the source of stress or distance yourself from the source
These combined with a good diet, exercise, and a healthy sense of self-esteem will go a long toward coping with stressful situations. Of course, learning this is a process rather than an event so it takes time to learn the basics. But one thing is for sure, if you can learn methods to reduce stress, you will go a long way toward reducing and preventing migraine headaches.
Tags: aura, cause of migraines, enlarged blood vessels, genetics, Hormonal, menstration, migraine, migraine triggers, stress, Weather
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