It's more common for some of us than others, but sometimes you get a headache after you go run and you're wondering, like, is there something wrong with me? Do I have a brain tumor? You go down this this hole on WebMD, where all these bad things are going to happen to you and you wonder, is my health in danger?
If you haven't been with me here before, I'm Jesse Funk, this is a show I call Runner's High, where we talk about everything running, including today's worry is having a headache after you get done running something to be worried about is your health in danger? Now, any time I do videos like this first, I have to say clear caveat I'm not a physician. If you have any very serious health issues, talk to your physician, please. YouTube is not a supplement for a real doctor. So with that in mind subscribe for my silly videos.
But we want to talk about headaches in particular and figure out what is the reason that you're getting headaches after you're running. Well, the most common reason is having to do with what's going on with your blood. Basically, there's two common symptoms or two common reasons you get these symptoms, but it has to do in large part with the lack of blood flow to your brain, which leads to a decrease in oxygenation. Thus, a headache.
So what decreases that blood flow? Well, number one, dehydration. That's a pretty clear reason that your blood volume has decreased. You've lost too much water. And that isn't just hey, during the exercise, I lost a lot of water. The hydration for today started yesterday.
You can't just cram in a bunch of water and then go run a marathon like that. That's not how it works. You have to be hydrated prior to and then especially if it's a marathon. Hydrate during. That's actually why I recently just launched as this video comes out, our new drink series, The Sync Series, where we are making a series of seven customizable drinks to address your hydration needs based on your particular genetic profile. So you can check that out Solpri.com/shop where we can help you assess your personal needs both through a sweat test when we get you lab quality results, or if we can help you estimate what it is that you need.
So when we're talking about hydration is the amount of water, right? But also the control of water inside of your cells and how they function is in part because of the amount of electrolytes. So you've heard electrolytes, how many times we talk about sports drinks, it's salts. They play a lot of different roles, but one of them is the movement of water across membrane and how water moves from drinking to inside of the cells through digestion.
Having sports drink that has electrolytes replaces them so that they can be used for all of their various functions, like helping your muscles move and getting nerve signals to your brain. But also, the water is involved in keeping the pressures inside of your body correct, as well as a number of other things like blood volume. So when you lose too much water, your blood volume decreases. The amount of oxygen can get into your brain.
Thus, results in something that is going to result in headaches. But blood volume is not the only part that your blood has to play in that kind of headache situation. So maybe you've hydrated enough. You've, as mentioned, checked out our Sync hydration series and figured out exactly what you need and you've got your hydration down. Great!
But the other thing that your blood does is help transport energy in the form of blood sugar. So if your blood sugar is too low, that can also relate to a headache. The easiest way to do do this or prevent this is simply have a snack, have a snack before you go work out. That'll help keep your blood sugar levels higher and prevent that headache. And these are the two main sources of headaches after a run.
So those are the two very most common reasons that you're getting a headache after running. Getting a headache is really not something that you should be doing very commonly. So if it happens to you after every single run, really, make sure you dialed in the things that you need again, hydration and then your blood sugar levels. And that means taking a snack, eating some carbs of some sort that will help increase your blood sugar levels. So if you want to check out those Sync hydration products again, Solpri.com/Shop. We can help you dial in your exact needs and really get in to the nitty-gritty of hydration there. I'm going to talk about that more in a future video. So, for now, subscribe every Tuesday and Thursday more episodes of Runner's High and I'll see you next time.