Headaches & migraines

You’ve probably had headaches long enough to have tried things. Caffeine, cutting caffeine, hydration, trigger journals, magnesium, sleep schedules. Maybe a prescription that helps sometimes, or a massage that helps for a day. The headache keeps coming back.

Most headaches don’t come from the head. They come from the neck, the shoulders, the breath, the jaw — and the head is where you feel the result.

What we see in headaches

Most chronic headaches we see fall into one of four patterns, and the same person often has more than one.

Tension headaches — a dull ache or tight pressure across the forehead and temples. Usually muscle tightness, usually stress-driven, usually a breath that’s stuck high in the chest with the upper traps doing too much.

Cervicogenic headaches — pain that originates in the neck and refers up. These respond very well to movement-based care and hands-on treatment because the source is mechanical.

Migraines — a nervous-system event, not a single muscle. Influenced by stress, sleep, hormones, breathing patterns, hydration, and muscle tension. We don’t claim to fix migraines, but we can change a lot of the inputs.

Postural and lifestyle-related headaches — gradual buildup from how you sit, screen time, jaw clenching, repetitive training loads. Daily habits become a daily headache.

How we evaluate headaches

Every patient at Move Better starts with a Movement Paradigm Evaluation. We watch how you breathe, how you stabilize, and how you hinge — three foundational patterns that show up in nearly every chronic-headache case.

In headaches we usually find:

• Breath that’s shallow and high in the chest, recruiting the upper traps and neck instead of the diaphragm. Those neck and shoulder muscles stay tight, refer up.
• Brace patterns that stiffen the cervical spine instead of pressurizing through the trunk.
• Daily postures (driving, screen time, sleeping) that lock those patterns in.

Read more about the Movement Paradigm →

How we treat headaches

Treatment usually combines:

• Movement retraining — most often around breath mechanics and shoulder/scapular control.
• Chiropractic adjusting — particularly cervical and upper thoracic, where the mechanical inputs to headache often live.
• Soft tissue work — releasing the tissues that have been holding the pattern.
• Acupuncture and massage therapy — both available in-house, both useful for chronic-headache patients.

Some headaches need more than what we offer. We refer out — to naturopaths, neurologists, imaging centers — when that’s the right call. We’re honest about what we can and can’t change.

Why it’s not too late

Most of the people we see for headaches have had them for years. The patterns are habits, and habits can be rebuilt at any age. What we don’t do is hand you a generic stretch routine and send you home — the work is specific to what we find in your evaluation, and you’ll practice it with us until it’s automatic.