Anxiety headaches, sometimes referred to as tension headaches, may occur in many different places, including: The front, sides, tops, and even back of the head. The back of the neck. The shoulder muscles in between shoulder blades.
Typically, anxiety triggers tension headaches and migraines. Tension-type headaches cause mild to moderate pain that's typically described as feeling like a band around the head. The dull, aching head pain may also be accompanied by tenderness in the scalp, neck, and shoulder muscles.
Anxiety headache description:
It also may feel like your head is 'frozen,' 'thick,' 'numb,' and/or many other odd aches, pains, feelings, and sensations. Some people describe anxiety headaches as feeling like they have an odd pressure in their head or that their head feels like it is about to explode.
Gently massaging your head and neck muscles may provide relief. If your headaches are due to stress or anxiety, you may want to learn ways to relax. Over-the-counter pain medicine, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, or acetaminophen, may relieve pain.
Tension headaches are the most common type of headache. Tension headaches typically do not cause nausea, vomiting, or sensitivity to light. Tension headaches affect both sides of the head, come on slowly, and are described as a tight band or vice around the head.
Tension headaches are dull pain, tightness, or pressure that can feel like a clamp squeezing your skull. They're also called stress headaches, and they're the most common type for adults.
Tension headaches
They feel like a constant ache that affects both sides of the head, as though a tight band is stretched around it. Normally, tension headaches are not severe enough to prevent you doing everyday activities. They usually last for 30 minutes to several hours, but can last for several days.
Researchers have suggested that a common predisposition to anxiety disorders, depression, and migraines may exist. Migraines and chronic daily headaches are common in people who suffer from anxiety disorders.
So while something in your own head may be mental, once that adrenaline is activated the symptoms are very real, and not something you're imagining. Also, those with anxiety tend to experience rushes of adrenaline even without thoughts, because their ability to control that adrenaline weakens.
Nerve pain - Anxiety can also cause the development of nerve-related pains. The pains are both real and psychological. Known as "psychogenic pain," the brain essentially activates pain sensors as a result of anxiety and stress.
Medically reviewed by Marilyn Folk, BScN. Shooting pain, such as sharp stabbling pains in the head, chest, neck, scalp, or anywhere else on the body, are common symptoms of anxiety disorder.
Anxiety happens when a part of the brain, the amygdala, senses trouble. When it senses threat, real or imagined, it surges the body with hormones (including cortisol, the stress hormone) and adrenaline to make the body strong, fast and powerful.
Migraine is a neurologic disorder that not only causes headaches, but often also a constellation of symptoms that can impact daily living, explains Jason Sico, MD, MHS, a Yale Medicine neurologist.
Signs and symptoms of a tension-type headache include: Dull, aching head pain. Sensation of tightness or pressure across the forehead or on the sides and back of the head. Tenderness in the scalp, neck and shoulder muscles.