Natural Migraine Relief Muscle Tension Test

Deepening your awareness of your body and the muscle tension you carry is a necessary step in achieving natural migraine relief. The following exercise will help you begin to practice greater body awareness and also assist you in releasing excessive muscle tension that makes you vulnerable to migraine attack.

Tune into your body right now bringing your focus to your neck. Move your neck from side to side slowly and just observe how it feels. Tilt your head forward towards your chest and then tilt your head slowly back looking up at the ceiling. Sense into your neck and notice how it feels. Notice how the front, back and sides of your neck feel.

Is there tension?
Is there soreness or discomfort?
What do you notice?

Then rate the level of tension you sense in your neck on a scale of 1-10, (1) being a very slight amount of tension, (5) being a moderate amount of tension and (10) being an extreme amount of tension.

Next, grab a hand towel and stand over your kitchen or bathroom sink.
Turn the water on to a warm-hot temperature and soak the hand towel in the water.
Next, wrap the towel all the way around your neck like a scarf.
Be sure to cover your whole neck.
When the warmth of the towel dissipates, soak it in the hot water again to get it hot and wrap it snugly around your neck again.
Continue this for the next 4 minutes, wrapping the moist heated towel fully around your neck.

When you are done, take a deep breath and let out a full exhalation

Tune into your neck muscles again
Just gently observe how your neck feels
You can move your neck from side to side again
Or roll it gently around in circles
Tilt your head forward towards your chest and back again as you glance up at the ceiling
Notice the level of tension you sense now in the front, back and sides of your neck

What do you sense in your neck now?
Has the tension decreased?
Do your muscles feel different?
Is there more flexibility in your neck?
How do your muscles feel?

Then rate your level of tension on a scale of 1-10

Sometimes we become aware of the tension we’ve been holding only after the muscles have relaxed. If our “normal” rate of tension is extreme and we do something like this that allows us to experience a feeling outside of the norm like then we have something new to compare to.

You can do this exercise anytime you want to help yourself increase your body awareness and relax your muscles.