Tiresome Tension Headache: How to Relieve It with 3 Minutes of Acupressure

Modern medicine looks deeply into our brain and nervous system to understand tension headaches. Just as the Donguibogam pinpointed depressive stagnation and anger as causes of headaches, modern medicine explains that chronic stress excessively activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for our body's fight-or-flight response. Put simply, when stressed, the body always maintains a ready stance as if in a state of emergency. During this process, stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline are excessively secreted from the adrenal gland. While these hormones help us escape crisis situations in the short term, maintaining chronically high levels triggers inflammatory reactions in the body and disrupts the balance of neurotransmitters. In particular, imbalances in important neurotransmitters involved in mood and pain modulation, such as serotonin and dopamine, lower the pain threshold, which can make one feel pain more intensely even from minor stimuli. Furthermore, stress causes us to unconsciously clench the muscles around our neck and shoulders tightly. Representative examples commonly include the trapezius muscle, sternocleidomastoid muscle, and the suboccipital muscles at the back of the head. When these muscles sustain prolonged contraction, blood circulation worsens, oxygen supply decreases, and fatigue substances such as lactic acid accumulate. A vicious cycle begins where these fatigue substances make the muscles even stiffer and continually send pain signals to the brain. In particular, tension in the suboccipital muscles at the back of the head easily irritates the greater occipital nerve, and because this nerve is connected with the trigeminal nerve, it can give a feeling as if spreading pain throughout the entire head. What the Donguibogam terms qi stagnation can be interpreted in modern terms as this reduction in blood circulation or disruption of neurotransmission. It is said that when our brain is exposed to pain for a long period, a phenomenon called neuroplasticity can even appear, where pain pathways are reinforced so that the brain perceives pain more easily and intensely. This is also why we need a fundamental approach of managing stress and releasing muscle tension, rather than merely reaching for analgesics simply because it hurts.