Does Stress Really Cause Headaches?

Ever find yourself reaching for the Advil when things start getting real? If you've always felt like your head starts aching when you're stressed out, science is now on your side -- according to a new study presented at the 2014 American Academy of Neurology meeting, having more stress in your life really does correlate with more headaches.

Researchers asked more than 5,000 people to rate their stress level on a scale of 0 to 100 and to report how many headaches they experienced per month, having participants answer these questions four times a year for a two-year period.

The researchers found that 31 percent of participants had tension headaches, 14 percent had migraines, and 11 percent had a combo of both. As for their stress levels? Tension headachers were 52/100 on the scale; migraine sufferers were 62; combo sufferers were at 59. (Unfortunately, the available study materials do not report stress levels of those in the study who did not suffer from headaches.)

And interestingly, the more stress the participants experienced, the more days per month they suffered from headaches. Take the tension headache sufferers: For those people, an increase of 10 points on the scale translated to 6.3 percent more headache days per month. Ouch, right?!

So why, you ask? Short answer: We don't know yet.

"The concrete biological mechanisms by which stress contributes to tension-type headache or migraine are currently unknown," study author Sara Schramm, MD, of University Hospital of University Duisburg-Essen in Germany. One popular theory among scientists is that it's a combination of physiological, psychological (i.e. cognitive, behavioral and emotional) and social factors. Pretty broad, we know. (Sorry!)

And if you do suffer from stress headaches?

"Psychological treatment, especially couching for stress coping is important," Dr. Schramm says. "Headache treatment is multidimensional, including medical, psychological and behavioral approaches."