Having your structure (ie – spine) properly balanced is one of the most important things you can do to help reduce the intensity and frequency of your headaches. Structural balance is extremely important because it can affect all the other systems in your body through the nervous system. Your spine protects your spinal cord which sends messages throughout your entire body; imbalance can result in misfiring of nerves and incorrect messages to your body systems. This can result in pain, but it can also result in many other problems such as indigestion, mental fog and constipation to name just a few.
As well as protecting the nervous system, your spine is the axis for movement in your body. Your muscles attach to your bones and tension in the muscles inflates your body against gravity. Your nervous system and proprioceptors in the joints tell your muscles how much to contract. If your muscles are getting the wrong signals from your nervous system due to a misalignment of your spine, there may be asymmetry of muscle tone which can in turn create pain and headaches.
Posture is important because it helps give us an understanding of the health of your nervous system. Most people believe posture is under their conscious control, but how often do you think about the tone of your errector spinae muscles? How often do you think, “My shoulders are tilted to the right and twisting backwards”? You may think about it momentarily if you are getting some feedback, but as soon as you start engaging your mind on different tasks your posture becomes subconscious.
So why is this important for headaches sufferers?
The weight of your head is between 8 and16 pounds. One of the reasons we stand on two feet, instead of just one, is because it is one of the most efficient ways to carry a heavy head against gravity. If you hold a heavy weight close to your body and then move it further away, you will notice that the weight becomes heavier and requires more muscle tension to hold it up. If at some point in your life you have a trauma that affects the position of your head and neck, the proprioceptors (position sensing organs of your nervous system) in your joints will compensate by creating asymmetrical tension in your spine to hold you up against gravity. This change in muscle tone can alter the position of your spine which can irritate nerves (cause pain), affect cerebrospinal fluid flow, and even affect your blood pressure.
In our office we focus on correcting the position of the head and neck and in turn affect reflexive posture using a technique called NUCCA. The average reduction in postural distortion is 83% in 2-3 days as a result of this shift in the position of the head and neck (using a pressure about as intense as having your pulse taken). These postural changes result in a change in the pain levels of 91% of our cervicogenic (neck related) headache sufferers and 70% of our migraine sufferers.
When I first had this type of adjustment done my posture changed dramatically and I have been virtually migraine free for the past 9 years (I previously had 2-4 migraines per month). That said, it is still very important to work on core stability, flexibility, and strength to improve your structural health. As the majority of your posture is subconsciously controlled, the right relief care can affect change quite rapidly and has a great potential for helping reduce or eliminate headaches.
