The most frequent type are muscle contraction headaches. The pain, which results from the pulling of muscles in the neck and at the base of the head, is usually not felt locally where the muscles are contracting. Muscle contraction headaches can result from stress at work or at home. They may be a result of sleeping or working in a strange position, or of an unusually long period of close-up work. Headaches caused by eye strain may feel like muscle contraction headaches, but are clearly related to extended use of the eyes.
Migraine headaches are the next most common cause of headache.
This type of headache pain is caused by stretching of the blood vessel walls in the head. Migraine headaches tend to run in families and affect about one person in ten. It can produce different symptoms in different people. In some, several very brief, severe headaches may occur close together. In others, a visual display of moving jagged lines may be followed by a severe headache.