Migraine headaches are an example of illness where stress is a major causative factor. The headache which occurs on the first day of a holiday, after the stress of packing for the family. See other Examples of stress-related illnesses in the table below. Tension headaches, on the other hand, usually start during the stress as a tension in the neck or the back of the head and gradually spread to the whole head. Some find that the tension is spreading to the whole body.
Some tension headaches become so severe that they develop into a migraine.
Anxiety and tension are almost always seen together. As anxiety increases, tension in the whole body becomes more pronounced. There are various types of anxiety. There is the free-floating anxiety and the anxiety associated with certain places such as the theatre or shopping centres. Anxiety ranges in severity from mild anxiety, which does not impair performance, all the way to that degree of anxiety which makes a person totally dysfunctional - the extreme of Generalized Anxiety Disorder which is almost incapacitating and commonly there all the time.