“Lifting cured my headaches!”
Fifty years of chronic headaches left Mary Beth Stern, 64, feeling sick, stressed and helpless—until she discovered the simple exercises that banished her pain
Mary Beth Stern swayed back and forth as she danced with her son at his wedding. She smiled, in spite of the pain of her headache. She wanted to remember every detail of the moment, but the pounding in her head was getting in the way. “The wedding was a threeday affair, and I had a headache the entire time,” she recalls. “No one could tell from the outside—because I had become accustomed to hiding the fact that I was suffering—but I know now that I wasn’t able to enjoy the momentous occasion as freely and completely as I would have liked to.
Missing out on life
“When I think about when my headaches started, I can go all the way back to seventh grade. I was an overachiever, and I had a very difficult teacher who demanded perfection— that stress was the beginning of my pain. At the time, my parents took me to a chiropractor, but I don’t think it helped, and I continued to experience headaches over the years. I was never one to stay home in bed, so I just tried to push through. But my memories of those years are foggy, marred by pain and discomfort.
“I have my own business, so if I started to get a really bad headache at night and knew there was no way I would recover by the morning, I would reschedule my meetings. I always thought to myself, Thank goodness I don’t work in a traditional office. That would have been extremely difficult. At home, I would work with an ice pack on my head or neck or I would take 15-minute
catnaps, which helped a bit. But the headaches kept coming back.
“About 10 years ago, when the pain was becoming unbearable, I talked to a physician and decided to try a prescription medication. It worked, relieving my pain within a couple of hours. But the medication also made me sleepy, and I would have to take a nap to recover from the side effects, which wasn’t always feasible. Then over the course of a couple of years, I noticed that the medicine was starting to give me digestive issues. I knew it wouldn’t work long-term, and so I found myself back at square one.
Freedom from pain
“About six years ago, shortly after my son’s wedding, I broke my arm and had to go to physical therapy. I was also diagnosed with osteopenia, and I knew lifting weights could be really beneficial for my bones and my muscles. I decided to join a gym, even though I hardly knew what to do. I didn’t want to spend money on a trainer, and I was too embarrassed to ask anybody at the gym if they could show me what to do, so I was just watching other people and experimenting with the machines—and probably doing things incorrectly.
“One day, I was at the gym attempting to lift weights when a trainer approached me and cautioned that, if I continued to do the exercise as I’d been doing it, I was at risk of hurting my neck. My neck has always been a problem area—most of my headaches start because I hold stress and tension in my neck, and that tension builds to a headache. So when the trainer zeroed in on that area, I felt like she was someone who could really help me. I told her about my headaches, and she said that lifting weights might be beneficial. She offered to work with me and even gave me a special discount on our sessions to make it more affordable for me.
“I started training with her once a week. She showed me how to do exercises that would strengthen the muscles in my neck, shoulders and upper back without causing any strain or discomfort that might lead to more headaches. After just two weeks, I felt significantly better. Physically, I was stronger and more energized. I noticed that my headaches were not as frequent, and if I did get one, it wasn’t nearly as intense. Emotionally, just knowing that my headaches wouldn’t be as bad as they used to be made me feel stronger and more confident.
“Today I try to go to the gym three or four times a week. There are days when I have a bit of a headache and the last thing I want to do is go work out, but I go anyway—and usually by the time I leave, my headache is gone. The fact that this regimen made such a significant difference in such a short period of time is incredible.
“The best part: My daughter got married last April, and I was completely headache-free for the entire week. I was ecstatic!”
—As told to Alyssa Rosenthal
“This regimen
made a significant difference in my
life in a short period of time”