Headache Caused by Anixety?

     Hello all, I'm new to this site. Thanks in advance for any support I can get, both with this post and with probably future posts.
    I'm a 19 year old male, and I've had anxiety pretty much my whole life. To make a long story short, I've had what I'm sure a lot of other people go through. My mother had anxiety disorder her whole life; and when I was a little kid, about six or seven, I started to develop the whole package: anxiety, OCD, and depression. When I became a teenager, most of the things (excluding a bit of the OCD) went away...until a few months ago, when a whole bunch of different things brought all the anxiety and depression rushing back into my life. But about a week ago, I developed this odd headaches that I've never had before. They're not real painful, just a little scary, because I keep telling myself it's cancer or something. Here's what happens: I wake up with the headache (usually a dull ache at first). Some days it's at the left side of my head, towards the back; and somedays it's at the right side of my head, towards the back, again. But whenever I stand up, or even move my head, my head hurts a LOT more than when I'm just keeping it still. I asked around, and people seem to think it's because my neck and back muscles are all tensed up due to the holidays here and all; so when I turn my neck, the pain shoots up to my head. I'm not sure, though. Does this kind of headache sound like it could be related to stress, and muscle tension?
     Sorry my post was so long!
-Jim

[moonflower13]

Hello, Jim!

I've had the same kind of headache you describe more than just a few times. The weird thing about headaches is that they come in so many different ways. We as anxious people never stop using (abusing?) our brains, it's normal that they grow achy, tired and sick of so much overworking. I'd say headaches go hand in hand with anxiety disorders (as do a long number of other physical symptoms!), if I had to mention the first physical symptom of an otherwise 100% cognitive anxiety that I've always had, that would be headaches! (they can be worse than just headaches, migraines -maybe that's your case?) And you thinking it's cancer fits the anxiety/OCD scenario only too well! Now, I don't know what exactly causes such headaches -could be the muscle tension, like you said-, but what I know is that it's not cancer, it's anxiety.

Hope that helped! Take care!

[Jim123456]

Yes, I guess it was anxiety. I woke up today, and my headache was gone for the first time in about a week. It must have been the stress of Christmas coming up. Anyway, thanks for responding to my question! I greatly appreciate it.
-Jim

[Connie1958]

It kind of sounds like a migraine type headache.  Migraines hurt on one side of your head and are brought on by stress.