There are many reasons why headaches can occur, including chemical reactions, food and air allergies, as well as sinus and vision problems, stress, and even over-stressing. Cervicogenic headaches are the most common type of headache. These headaches are caused by an imbalance in the neck. These imbalances can be caused by anything from sports injuries to car accidents.
Proper Posture
Postural imbalances in the neck are the most common cause of cervicogenic headaches. There are more than 20 muscles and ligaments in the neck that attach to and around your skull. The skull weighs approximately 13 pounds. This means that these muscles must be able to hold the correct weight of a moving bowling ball. Injury to the ligaments can cause overcompensation of surrounding muscles. This can lead to knots in the muscles or trigger point syndrome.
Postural deficits are a common cause of neck imbalance and trigger points. The muscles ability to function is determined by how we stand, sit, work, read, and sleep. The muscles that run from the shoulders down to the base of your skull are stressed if you have your head in a forward or flexed position.
Good Tip
For work, we need to keep our heads up with one ear on the phone. Schools require us to be in uncomfortable positions throughout grade school and college. With the proliferation of computers, from the office to the home to wireless to portable, it is now possible to spend all of our waking hours with our heads in the wrong position, resulting in an increase in headaches.
As you can see, most of our day-to-day activities put our neck muscles and cervical spine in work mode. Our necks and shoulders are the only time we can get rest is when we sleep. Unfortunately, most people’s sleeping posture is not better than their awake posture. Therefore, our necks get little rest at night.
Neck Pain
The most common cause of neck imbalance and cervicogenic headache is the forward or flexed head. This can be translated to how we sleep. It is important to sleep on your back with the correct pillow or on your side. The worst thing about sleeping on your stomach is that it puts stress on the muscles and causes the cervical spine to move in the opposite direction of its normal position.
This is fine for side sleepers. However, due to habit or temperature, we tend to tuck the chin down to a fetal position which creates the same posture as we do during the day. Side and back sleepers use pillows that are too large, creating either a forward flexion or lateral flexion position. Because the brain stem contains 12 cranial nerves, cervicogenic headaches may also be associated with other symptoms.
Conclusion
These nerves are responsible for many functions, including vision, taste, and hearing. If you have a combination of these symptoms, such as blurred vision, seeing spots or headaches that cause nausea, it is possible that you have cervicogenic headaches secondary the cervical spine and muscle imbalances. If symptoms persist, you should always consult your doctor.
