Can Exercise Cause Different Types of Headaches?

Headaches and exercise can go hand-in-hand or fist to fist. Although doctors often recommend regular exercise as headache therapy, intense exercise can precipitate headaches. Exercising too strenuously releases an excess of nitric oxide, a chemical that dilates blood vessels. The engorged blood vessels put pressure on nerve endings, resulting in headache. The work around for this is simply to add a slow warm-up to your workout.

Unfortunately, people who get frequent headaches are often afraid to exercise. Still, most experts believe that twenty to thirty minutes of exercise three times a week eliminates some headaches and decreases the severity of many others, including migraines. Even if you don’t finish a whole session, completing a well-planned warm-up may produce the same results.

Exercise should combat headaches, but when headache and exercise are a team, these red flags are signals of serious problems that your doctor should check.

Your headache is sudden.

Each new headache is worse than the last one.

New headaches differ in either intensity or symptoms from previous ones.

A unilateral (one side of your head) headache is persistent.

You wake up with a headache or headache wakes you up!

Neck pain or stiffness accompanies headache.

You experience nerve problems like paralysis or tingling.

If you haven’t been exercising because you’re afraid of headaches and exercise, here are some tips for a low-impact start:

1. Stretching reduces muscle soreness that can result in headache. Start your exercise program with a few good stretches. Keep them in your warm-up when you move on to exercise that is more strenuous and use them at the end of each session to “cool-down” slowly.

2. Walking is an excellent form of exercise. Walk for ten or fifteen minutes one way, then turn around and walk home. Increase the “briskness” of your step slowly. In fact, you’ll find that your speed increases on its own if you make walking a regular form of exercise.

3. Keep a water bottle nearby. When your throat is dry, so are your muscles!