Picking up from the review meeting post – after a few people mentioned the jaw clenching thing in the comments, I started catching myself and dropping my jaw on purpose a few times a shift. Helped some days. Not others.
What I didn’t have was the timing piece. A coworker sent me a video this week (unrelated conversation, she wasn’t even trying to fix my problem) that explained why a tension headache from jaw clenching usually doesn’t show up until hours later – the muscle at the hinge stays tight long after whatever triggered it is over.
That lines up with my afternoons exactly. The meeting that ran long wasn’t even that bad in the moment. The headache didn’t start until around 3pm, hours after it ended. Hasn’t made it go away, but at least the timing isn’t a mystery anymore…