Top 10 Yoga Poses for Headaches
Yoga can be a beneficial therapeutic tool for relieving headaches brought on by muscle tension and stress. The majority of headaches originate from muscle stiffness and imbalances emanating from the neck and upper back. When headaches set in, using a series of restorative yoga exercises can greatly relieve both the cause and symptoms. Here are our top yoga poses and exercises that naturally treat headaches.
1. Cat Pose: The flowing motion of breath and spine helps release tension from the neck and upper back while also pouring refreshing energy through the body and mind.
2. Seated Twists: Besides increasing circulation throughout the entire length of the spine, the twisting motion in the upper spine (cervical region) often alleviates tension coming from the scalene muscles of the neck (anterior aspect).
3. Chest Openers: Much of the tension in the back body is a result of muscle dominance from the front body (called Upper Cross Syndrome). Expanding the chest and front shoulder muscles helps break down muscular imbalances and frees the tension coming from the neck.
4. Eagle Arms: This simple crossed arm pose can be done in Mountain Pose or any natural seated posture. This back expander can reach well into the mid and upper back targeting problematic muscles around the shoulder blades and the base of the neck. Take time in this arm pose to breath slow and full into the upper back and insure that you perform this arm pose on both sides.
5. Simple Neck Stretches: Gently move through the various muscle fiber lines by allowing your head to float down to one shoulder with gravity, down across the chest and into the other side – repeat with a natural, unforced motion. Avoid letting the head fall back-keep the motion in a half circle from one shoulder to the other. Pause where you find extra areas of resistance.
6. Child’s Pose: A perfect restorative yoga pose that slightly inverts the body. A gentle flow of extra blood circulates into the head helping relieve tension. With the legs slightly separated, you can easily settle into deep core and back breathing to encourage a flood of circulation to reach deep into the body. Note that the head and neck should be absolutely comfortable. If needed, keep you arms forward or bend the elbows and rest the forearms by your chest/under your shoulders so the palms face up-this will greatly unload any pressure from the neck.
7. Two Knee Reclining Twist: Unlike our seated twists, this reclining twist can be far more restorative and held longer to bring deeper focus into relaxing the nervous system while the chest expands and rejuvenates the spine. Give extra attention to releasing the shoulders into the mat to release dominance of the shoulder and chest muscles.
8. Legs Up The Wall Pose: This highly beneficial inverted pose is great for developing hamstring flexibility and for improving circulation in the lower limbs. For headaches, the extra flow of blood to the brain and the restorative support can be deeply relaxing and nourishing.
9. Alternate Nostril Breathing: The aim of alternate nostril breathing is to restore balance to the energy systems. With balance, we find release and calm. This yoga breathing exercise is easy to do for all levels and targets the nervous system by slowing brain waves, calming the mind, and purging stress.
10. Relaxation Pose: After doing a series of restorative yoga poses, take some time to simply relax and release in Savasana. Turn the focus away from the symptoms of your headache and settle into the sensation of mental and physical release. You may find a light eye pillow helpful in moving tension/pressure out of the eyes and forehead. Increase your comfort by placing a bolster under the knees and a thin pillow under the head. To complement the chest openers and reclining twists, lay with the arms open to the sides/palms facing the ceiling.
Try These Practices for Headache Relief
About the Author
4 Ways to Make Savasana Sweeter
At the end of yoga class, it’s often joked that Savasana is the most difficult pose of all. It didn’t take me long to realize that there may be some truth to this joke. Many beginners struggle with Savasana, either falling asleep or hanging on to their thoughts, forbidding clarity and relaxation to sink in.
One of the reasons I developed a commitment to yoga was the paltry $5 difference between signing up for only yoga classes and tacking on a full gym membership. I seldom went upstairs to the gym. Movement on the machines felt unnatural and I was intimidated by the bulky dudes in tight shirts. Meanwhile, I found the yoga classes soothing. I sweated out so many toxins and worked on my flexibility, but there was something that regularly happened in class that annoyed the sweet prana right out of me.
When it was time for the exquisitely long 15 minutes of well-deserved Savasana, some unknowns upstairs would start their heavy weightlifting routine. Loud thuds and trembling shock waves distracted my focus and raised feelings of anger and rage. I thought about going upstairs to complain, but I wasn’t inclined to start an argument with buff dudes who could kick my skinny ass.
I didn’t realize until my teacher training that this aggravation was allowing me to practice aparigraha, or non-attachment, by letting go of thoughts and emotions, either positive or negative. After about four months, those thuds sounded like a light knock on the door of my perception; I had learned to withdraw from my senses and my active mind.
Here are four ways to improve the Savasana experience, both in your personal practice and when you’re teaching class.
Learn and Practice Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra is a technique that guides students through various parts of their bodies. It works by increasing the awareness of sensations in the muscular, connective and nerve tissues by breathing into them to send a signal of relaxation.
If done right, one can feel the energy flow up and down through the chakras. Eventually, it’s possible to dissolve sensations from the body altogether. It’s like having a voice-guided eraser that slowly fades your body into the ether.
There are many Yoga Nidra meditation recordings out there, and some teachers like to guide their students through a session during Savasana. However, due to time limits at studios, it’s best to incorporate in a home practice to allow yourself the extra time.
Mystical Music or Silence
Traditionally, yoga was done without music, much less meditation. It wasn’t until yoga came to the West that teachers started to notice the addition of music adds more flow and rhythm to a class. In the end, it really comes down to the preference of the individual.
Being a “Cosmic DJ” is no easy feat. We often let our personal musical preferences filter into our sacred tracks, be it mantras, Kirtan, white sounds or Enya. I’ve had some teachers play great songs through class and then choose an awful track for Savasana that was distracting or too intense.
My recommendation is to experiment and find tracks that take you to another dimension. If you live in a quiet town or deep in the woods, these locations allow for moments of silence; work with that and get a little Tibetan bowl timer in case you drift too deeply.
Visualizations
One of the most powerful resources available to us is our imagination. I’ve found that using my imagination for visualizations has led me to profound and prolonged sessions of peace, quiet and rest. Here are three visualizations that help the mind let go.
The Big Blue Sky
Bring your awareness to the color blue, as if you were lying down on the earth looking up at the sky. Feel the warmth of the sun on your body and start to breathe in the fresh air. Any thought that passes through your mind, give it the shape of a big, fluffy cloud. If a thought is more negative, make the cloud more stormy and grey.
As you inhale, summon the power of the wind element, and as you exhale, watch how the clouds slowly drift away. Continue attaching thoughts to cloud shapes and breathe them away until nothing remains except blue bliss.
This visualization is a personal favorite inspired by Pema Chodron’s quote, “You are the sky, everything else is just the weather.”
The Ocean of Consciousness
Imagine you are sitting on a deserted beach in front of the crashing waves. Imagine that each wave is a thought or feeling. Let the wave slowly rise and fall as it crashes and dissolves in the sand.
As the breath deepens, so do the waves. Ask yourself, Where are these waves coming from? Their source is the depths of your mind. Imagine standing on the shores of your own consciousness, witnessing the waves arriving and dissolving. Realize you are not just the waves, but the whole ocean.
(This visualization works great with some ambient wave sounds.)
The Theater and the Ghost Light
Imagine that the mind is a stage, and your awareness is auditioning thoughts to see how well they perform. Some are funny, others are dramatic, and there’s the occasional poetic script read.
Imagine that your cue to let each thought go is a deep breath. As you start to slow your breath, you notice the stage lights are slowly fading out. The stage turns dark except for a white light that’s keeping the ghosts from the past and future away.
This light is your anchor to the present moment. It’s the light that shines within you and illuminates other beings with love, compassion and kindness. With every inhale, let these positive feelings sink in and watch how the light glimmers brighter and brighter.
Essential Oils
Last but not least, aromatherapy is an effective way to calm the mind and relax the body. A diffuser works like a charm to spread the scent through a whole room, but there’s nothing more powerful than rubbing a little dab of oil right on the third eye, the base of the neck and the temples. Some favorite essential oils for Savasana are lavender, bergamot, ylang ylang, rose, jasmine, melissa and geranium.
