People who are most at risk for dealing with tension headaches include:

anyone who is under a lot of chronic stress (such as working a high-pressure job, having financial troubles or dealing with emotional trauma)

people who eat a pro-inflammatory diet, including one with a lot of packaged foods high in salt, sugar, chemicals and preservatives

being a woman (some studies find that more woman than men experience headaches)

being middle-aged (while anyone can suffer from headaches, there’s evidence that tension headaches seem to peak when people are in their 30s or 40s, possibly due to growing stress levels and less physical activity)

those who clench their jaw when they sleep or who have sleep apnea (which can trigger morning headaches)

missing meals and dealing with blood sugar fluctuations

By and large the most common trigger for a tension headache is stress. This is why it’s crucial to learn how to manage stress in your life before it can start to negatively impact your health - not to mention your quality of sleep, motivation, dietary choices and relationships. Some people might notice that certain conditions make them more likely to develop a tension headache, such as a bad week at work, sitting for many hours and working on a computer, traveling, or being sleep-deprived. When factors like the weather, light or loud noise seem to trigger headaches, it’s still possible that stress is the underlying cause that make someone more susceptible to a headache.

There are also other reasons beyond stress that a tension headache can form, although the exact mechanism of how headaches develop still isn’t totally understood. The belief used to be that tension headaches resulted from certain muscle contractions in the head, face, neck and scalp (in fact, previously tension headaches were called muscle contraction headaches), But today we know that these contractions are likely tied to emotional problems and stress. (11) Anxiety or stress can cause the muscles to tighten up and constrict, which affects signals being sent from our nerves.

It’s also possible that people who experience chronic tension headaches are predisposed to pain and might have a heightened sensitivity to both bodily pain sensations and stress. For example, some people experience more muscle tenderness than others, which is one common symptom of tension headaches.