At Home Remedies for Headache Relief | Upper Cervical Chiropractor for Headaches in Mount Dora, FL
Today we’re going to be talking about some home remedies that you can do yourself if you’re suffering from headaches. Basically, these are all things you can do at home. The first one is simply doing some stretches. So when it comes to the stretches, we’re going to be primarily focusing on the neck and the upper back and you’re going to do things in your pain free range of motion. So just nice and easy. If you’re a headache sufferer, you want to do these even when you’re feeling good, just to keep your mobility up. These help particularly if you also have accompanying neck pain or tightness, which most everybody suffering from headaches does.
Range of Motion Stretching
So first one you’re going to do is just simply some range of motion rotation to the left and right, and you’re gonna go to the end range, but still anpain free range of motion. I’d like to do 10 each side, just get some motion to those joints and you’re gonna do flexion and extension with a pain free range of motion. Go as far as you can comfortably, so that you’re feeling a stretch in the front, and a stretch through the back. Alright, the other one is going to be geared towards the shoulder, so lateral bending, side bending, pain, free range of motion 10 each side. Once you get comfortable with it, you can pick up the speed. Okay? So these mobility exercises are great to do anytime, again, even if you’re not suffering do them when you feel good, that’s kind of the key for prevention.
Hot & Cold Treatment
Now the other one that’s pretty common and obvious, most folks have a hot and or cold pack at the house. Everyone’s a little different. So you need to find out what works for you but obviously, just going to put a hot or cold pack in the affected area. So if you’re having tension headaches, and you’ve got tension and stress and pain around the base of the skull, I’d actually recommend starting with a cold pack, you can alternate hot and cold, but end with cold because that’s going to reduce that inflammation. Generally that’s where pain is coming from with inflammation. If you’re having sinus, or you know, orbital or frontal type headache pain, again, that’s where you’re going to apply the cold and the heat, alright, you probably don’t want to go fir 10 to 15 minutes on the affected area. You can do that every hour as needed.
The Importance of Hydration
Then you’ve got essential oils, obviously, there’s a lot of different great uses for essential oils. In this example for headaches, lavender, or peppermint are really great oils to use. You just use a little bit, and you want to just put a tiny little bit on the temples of your head so those oils can really help reduce some of the intensity of the headaches. Hydration, this is the easiest one and really, there’s no excuse because you should be staying hydrated. Anyway, it’s really good for you, we’re gonna do a whole video just on why you should stay hydrated. But generally speaking as a loose rule of thumb, half of your body weight in ounces, okay. So if you weigh 150 pounds, you want to be drinking about 75 ounces of water a day. You want to avoid things that create dehydration. So that’s your caffeinated drinks, alcoholic drinks, things like that are going to pull water out of you. So in that case, if you do indulge, you need to add a bit more water to compensate.
Breathing Techniques
Alright, next one is the box breathing and this really has to do with not only oxygenating your body, but just reducing stress. So if you’re just feeling anxious or stressed and just got a lot on your plate, box breathing is great. Again, even if you feel okay or not suffering, they’re just good to reduce stress. There are different versions of box breathing, but the one that I teach folks, is easy as going to breathe in for a count of four, hold your breath for a count of four, and then exhale for a count of four. And do that for eight or ten repetitions of that. So breathing in for a second, sit and hold for four. And then exhale for four and just feel all your muscles and just try to relax everything to get the tension out of your system, okay? It also helps to activate what’s called your vagus nerve and your parasympathetic and just get your body to slow down and get into more of a healing phase rather than a stress phase. Then you can do a hot compress over the eyes, especially if you have any sinus or frontal headache. Just laying down and closing the eyes, put a hot compress, and it feels better. Obviously you can do any combination of these, sometimes that’s what it takes depending on the type and severity of headache that you’re having
If you’re having chronic headaches you may need professional help. So we encourage you to follow up. If you’d like to have a consultation in our office just let us know or even if you just have questions, please reach out!
