People with tension headaches are more apt to have mechanical or postural stresses underlying their headache vulnerability. However, many have a mixture of different kinds of headaches with some features of migraine and some features of muscle tension. The most successful nutritional approaches can be applied to both. Reducing stress and anxiety . I would say it makes an important difference in about one-third of my headache patients.
Caffeine is a stimulant which acutely helps reduce headache pain.
That's why it's added to many headache medicines, e.g. Excedrin, Fiorinal. At least twice a year I find a patient whose headaches disappear completely after tapering off caffeine. For those who drink 5 or more cups of coffee a day, probably about half are addicted. However, I have seen caffeine withdrawal headaches at even one cup of coffee, one tea, one cola drink or one an aspirin a day. Unless you are quite sure you are not addicted to caffeine, do not rapidly reduce your caffeine without medical supervision.