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When people experience frequent head pain, some simply aim to weather through it and continue their daily lives. However, what do headaches say about mental health and your overall wellness? Take those sudden discomforts as a sign to assess your health and lifestyle.

Are Frequent Headaches Normal?

Frequent headaches are not normal. A sudden one is a stressful endeavor, but it’s relatively normal to experience. However, there are several headache disorders. Migraines are one of the more popular ones, known for their longer duration and stronger intensity.

Other headache disorders include tension-type headaches. People who experience these recurrent conditions may have episodes fewer than 15 days every month. However, those with chronic tension-type pains may experience it more often.

Another form of recurring headache is the cluster headache. These episodes occur several times throughout a single day and are much more severe. There are also chronic cluster headaches that can impede one’s quality of life.

What Frequent Headaches Mean

Tension-type headaches can stem from a variety of health and lifestyle problems you need to address. Assess your quality of life objectively and aim to remedy the aspects that worsen it.

1. Depression

Depression is a long-term mental health condition that affects your everyday functioning. One of its symptoms involves untreatable headaches. However, you can focus on treating it to get rid of the frequent pain. Once you’ve treated depression, headaches will naturally disappear. 

Talking to loved ones and professionals like a mental health counselor helps you navigate your feelings better. There’s also medication for those depressive episodes, which can inadvertently lessen headaches.

2. Anxiety

Another mental health condition to look out for is anxiety. It increases the chances of getting headaches more often and can even translate into migraines later on. You may then end up losing sleep and worrying over things that trigger those episodes.

Treating anxiety headaches takes plenty of time. Therapy is particularly effective since it gives you more awareness of your thoughts and behaviors. Medication can ease your pain, as well. You should also make an effort to reduce stress.

3. Chronic Stress

Frequent headaches may also come from a stressful lifestyle. Whether it’s from school, work, your personal life or more, there’s just too much pressure. It’s even worse when you feel stress pulling you in several directions.

Try to seek stress-relief methods to ease the strain on your health. For example, meditation helps you work on mindfulness. People who get massages have more headache-free days and experience better moods since it helps them relax, too.

4. Hidden Pain Problems

Frequent headaches will mainly feel like the pain is coming from your forehead and temples. However, it may have been triggered by pain in other parts of your body you have yet to address. Here are a few examples:

• Eyestrain: Does everything seem out of focus? Some headaches are caused by vision problems like eye fatigue and irritation. Set up an appointment to get yours checked. You may need glasses or eyedrops to lessen the strain.
• Tooth pain: Tooth pain is often very prominent, but it fades into a dull ache after a while. However, you must avoid being complacent and still see a dentist. You may have to remedy teeth grinding or get a wisdom tooth removal to relieve the pain.
• Intestinal problems: Your gut could be causing you headaches. Studies have shown people who experience gastrointestinal symptoms like constipation are more likely to get headaches than people who don’t. You may need medication to fix it.
• Hormonal imbalances: Many women get headaches right before their menstruation. Some also experience them when ovulating. Consult your doctor regarding these hormonal shifts to gauge what can be done about your frequent head pains.

5. Harmful Environment

Frequent headaches may indicate you’re living in an unhealthy environment. An area with low air quality and flickering lights is less than comfortable, so invest in improvements like a purifier and newer bulbs.

Another aspect of harmful surroundings is noise. Many people are sensitive to sound, so frequent disturbances cause recurring headaches. Consider insulating your space to block out unwanted audio. You can also get quality earplugs to protect your hearing.

6. Lack of Basic Necessities

It’s understandable to get swept up in the unpredictability of everyday life. Nevertheless, you should always prioritize your basic necessities. Here are the aspects you may forget to prioritize:

• Food: Hunger headaches can make you angry, so avoid them by giving yourself the right sustenance. A balanced diet with fruits and vegetables is a must. Do yourself a favor and set a proper eating schedule, too, to avoid sudden head pains.
• Water: Dehydration headaches occur when you haven’t had enough fluids. Luckily, they should go away in an hour or two after drinking 32 ounces of water. Make sure you have a refillable bottle by your side at all times to stay hydrated.
• Exercise: Get rid of lingering tensions that manifest into a headache by exercising. Choose physical activities you enjoy to make the time fly by. It will also entice you to do it regularly.
• Rest: Even if you don’t feel stressed or overwhelmed, remember to give yourself downtime. Take breaks throughout the day to just take a deep breath. You should also get an optimal amount of sleep to feel energized.

7. Unhealthy Habits

Frequent headaches may also stem from unhealthy habits. Drinking liquor often can cause you to have long hangovers. It may also condition you to seek alcohol and get irritated when you are unable to obtain it. Limit your intake as much as possible.

Drinking coffee regularly is also a culprit. Caffeine’s effects — such as narrowing blood vessels around the brain and triggering headaches — last up to 12 hours or so. Try to regulate how much you drink and opt for water during the latter parts of the day.

8. Medication Overuse

Medication is a powerful tool for managing many health conditions. However, certain pain relievers and antibiotics have strong side effects, and some of them may just lead to frequent headaches.

In these cases, it’s important to talk with your doctor to adjust the dosage. You can also explore lifestyle changes and alternative forms of treatment to avoid reliance on the medicine. That way, you could still get treated without recurring head pains.

Protect Your Health from Headaches

You shouldn’t brush off frequent headaches or accept them as a part of your daily routine. Assessing and changing your lifestyle can do wonders for your health, which inevitably protects you from head pains.

The way you engage with the world affects how the world treats you. Developing a strong sense of self and feeling good about who you are gives you the wherewithal to withstand outside influences and face life on your terms. What are the factors that affect self-confidence, and how can you develop them? 

While some aspects will always lie outside your control, taking charge of what lies within your ability to manage can transform your life. Here are the factors that impact self-confidence and how you can rebuild it regardless of your circumstances. 

What Are the Factors That Affect Self-Confidence? 

Multiple external factors affect your self-confidence. While it may seem like some circumstances lie outside of your control, falling prey to a victim mentality prevents you from making improvements. Blaming others and not taking responsibility for your actions can hold you back.

Your challenge is to find ways that you can better how you feel about yourself by honoring and validating your lived experiences and championing your strength. Although much of this process is internal, it often results in noticeable, material changes in your circumstances. 

1. Your Upbringing

According to psychologist Tim Fletcher, all humans have 12 basic needs, including love and security. When these needs go unmet in childhood, complex trauma can result, which affects your worldview and self-confidence. 

For example, those who were rarely offered empathy, encouragement or forgiveness as children may react with suspicion when others display these qualities. The problem compounds if they also weren’t taught emotional regulation or permitted to create healthy boundaries. They may unfairly accuse others of trying to take advantage of them and behave in ways that drive away other people who could help them improve their lives. 

Taking an honest look at your upbringing isn’t easy. However, recognizing that your childhood wasn’t perfect doesn’t need to mean blaming your parents or cutting off contact. It’s your responsibility as an adult to examine the spoken and unspoken lessons you learned in youth and let go of those beliefs that don’t serve you. Examining and solidifying your belief system empowers you to create a healthier ongoing relationship with your folks and others in your life. 

2. Your Financial Circumstances

Unfortunately, finances are a factor that can impact self-confidence in societies where many people measure your worth by your earning capacity. It’s easy to say that loving what you do matters more than the paycheck until you survive the embarrassment of sleeping in your car because you can’t afford rent. 

Sadly, those who lack self-confidence are more likely to fall prey to scams. They’re also more likely to listen to folks who might not be malintentioned but motivated by their own need for a paycheck when giving advice. For example, going back to school could give you a headstart on a new career — or leave you buried under a mountain of student debt for relatively little payoff, salary-wise. Research the enrollment counselor’s claims before signing those loan papers.

Conversely, self-confidence can look like walking into a business and speaking to the owner about job opportunities or discussing your need for advancement with your boss. If the position you desire requires a degree, ask for tuition assistance or reimbursement in exchange for doing the work. The worst they can say is no — now you know where you stand. Mustering the courage to pose the question builds confidence and lets you move forward with less uncertainty. 

3. Your Physical Abilities and Health 

Your physical wellness may impact your ability to work, and lacking a paycheck can harm your confidence. However, feeling insecure about your health also subtly affects self-confidence in less obvious ways. For example, failing to correct your nearsightedness with glasses can leave you uncertain about how others perceive you. Was that person across the room smiling and waving at you or someone else? 

Unfortunately, obtaining medical care isn’t necessarily easy, depending on what country you live in. Fortunately, information about how to take better care of yourself and improve your overall wellness, including easing many chronic symptoms, is readily available, often for free. For example, learning how to improve your daily diet and addressing suspected food allergies is enough to transform how some people feel, and you can find guidance online and in libraries. 

Exercise isn’t only for controlling your weight. It’s also about learning to celebrate your body instead of being ashamed of it. It’s a time to gently challenge your limits and relieve daily stress. 

Engaging in other stress-relieving activities, such as deep breathing and getting adequate sleep, also improves your overall health. 

4. Your Trauma History 

Therapist and author Gabor Mate explains that trauma is less what happens to you but what happens inside you. It isn’t only the car accident, assault or narcissistic abuse that creates unwanted symptoms and shakes your confidence, but how you process the event, and the support you receive afterward — or never get. 

Unfortunately, just as facing your upbringing is your responsibility as an adult, so is dealing with your trauma. Failing to do so can mean passing it on to others, especially your kids. It’s hard, and it’s unfair if you’re left alone to deal with trauma’s wake, but you can heal yourself using this method and applying the same TLC (tender loving care) to yourself as a professional therapist would: 

• Validate your experience: It happened. It sucked. However, you got through it. Acknowledge how hard it was to overcome what you did — don’t downplay or minimize the struggle. Applaud yourself for doing the best you could with the knowledge you had at the time. 
• Educate yourself: Read stories about others who have overcome similar traumatic events. Go online and research various therapeutic modalities like CBT and DBT. There’s no law stopping you from using these techniques on yourself independent of a therapist, and you’re often the best judge of which practices work best for you, anyway. 
• Learn bottom-up and top-down interventions: Bottom-up interventions include things like practicing yoga or working in the garden to diffuse intense emotions until you can process them more intellectually. They involve using your body to calm your physical reactions to emotional stress so you can think. Top-down strategies include journaling, CBT and DBT, which use your mind to work through problematic situations. 
• Treat yourself like you were a patient: How would you want your therapist to treat you? Show yourself at least that much loving-kindness to gradually rebuild your self-confidence and appreciation. 

Recovering from trauma isn’t easy, but it is perhaps the best thing you can do to rebuild shattered self-confidence after an event that shakes it. Also, remember, there’s no trauma Olympics — if the circumstances were sufficient to change how you feel about yourself, they’re deserving of TLC. Forget the notion that you’re undeserving of self-care simply because others have it worse. 

5. Your Ability to Connect With Others 

Are you a trusting person, or do you jump to automatically suspecting the worst about other people’s motives and behaviors? Ideally, you’re somewhere in the middle — but your ability to connect with others can affect your self-confidence. 

Those who find it hard to trust others often become hyper-independent, which can backfire in two ways. One, it nurtures a “my way or the highway” mentality that drives people away, and your confidence drops when folks avoid you. Two, you can make easy tasks unnecessarily difficult, leading you to throw up your hands in despair. Such behavior shatters your confidence in your abilities when asking for help may have revealed a simple solution. 

Fortunately, you can improve your attachment style, even if your childhood left you less trusting. Self-reflection and journaling are powerful techniques, as is attending therapy, especially with a counselor well-versed in attachment theory.  

Build Your Confidence 

On the surface, it appears that the factors that impact confidence the most lie outside of your control. However, there’s always something you can do to build your self-confidence, and it all begins with validating your experiences and exercising self-compassion instead of beating yourself up. 

Understanding the factors that impact your self-confidence provides a pathway to a brighter tomorrow. Recognize your unique challenges and address them to feel more secure in how you face the world each day.