A lot of people have long suspected that stress causes headaches but researchers in Germany have finally confirmed this long held suspicion as fact.
In a new study that will be presented at the 2014 American Association of Neurology Annual Meeting which will be held in Philadelphia from April 26- May 3 this year, German researchers surveyed 5,159 individuals who were between 21 to 71 years old four times a year for two years asking them about their stress levels on a scale of 0 to 100 and the amount and intensity of headaches that they have experienced.
Based on the subjects' assessments and reports, the researchers found there is correlation between stress and headache. The greater stress an individual experiences, the more intense and frequent headaches he has.
"The results add weight to the concept that stress can be a factor contributing to the onset of headache disorders, that it accelerates the progression to chronic headache, exacerbates headache episodes, and that the headache experience itself can serve as a stressor," said study author Sara Schramm, from the University Hospital of University Duisburg-Essen in Germany.
The researchers also found that less than one-third of the participants who rated their stress level at an average of 52 out of 100, had tension-type headaches, the most common headache characterized by intense pressure or muscle pain. An increase of 10 points in the stress scale of these participants also resulted in a 6.3 percent increase in the number of days per month that they had headaches.
Meanwhile, 14 percent of the participants who had an average stress rating of 62 out of 100 had migraine, which involves severe or pulsing pain in the head. A 10-point increase in their stress scale is likewise associated with a 4.3 percent increase in the number of days per month that they had headaches.
"Increasing stress resulted in increasing headache frequency for all headache subtypes," Schramm observed. "[Study] participants with migraines experienced more stress than participants with tension-type headaches."
The researchers said that the results of the study imply that one effective way to prevent headaches is to reduce stress and that people who suffer from headaches can likely benefit from stress management.
"These results show that this is a problem for everyone who suffers from headaches and emphasize the importance of stress management approaches for people with migraine and those who treat them," Schramm said.
