Headache Prevention and Relief

If you have reached a "certain age" you may find a monthly headache replacing your old cycle. Your body is changing and as a result you can get sinus headaches or other kinds of headaches. You might find that tablets and pills and chemical remedies have side effects that you don't like, or maybe your body doesn't respond to them anymore. Here are some great tips, some which I learned from a doctor.

To prevent headaches:

1. Watch your posture. There is a tendency to slump a little when you get older, and this pinches the nerves and can bring on a headache.

2. Get adequate sleep, but get up at the same time each morning. If you "sleep in" you might noticed that you will wake up with a headache. This is a type of "withdrawal" from the things you are used to when you get up--the food you eat, the things you drink, the activities, and other things your body gets accustomed to.


3.Find some kind of strenuous work to do outside every day, and work up to a fast pace. I don't like formal exercise, but I find more motivation in working up a sweat while doing something quite useful that needs to be done.

4. Breathe deeply and let your breath out slowly. If you get a headache, try breathing as deeply as you can and puffing out your breath. This sometimes relieves the pain of a sinus headache.

5. Peppermint oil with rubbing alcohol applied to the forehead and temples, can relieve a headache. Massage the area with just a drop of this 3 times a day. Breathing some eucalyptus oil, or putting some in a vaporizor, can help.

6. Trying dropping refined sugar and all artifical foods from your diet for a month. This may help decrease the amount of headaches you get.

7.Put a cold cloth at the base of your skull, and put your feet in warm water. Sometimes "headache" people suffer from cold feet and hands. Massage also helps a headache.

8. You can purchase a "headache Tea" made from things like valerian, chamomile, mint, and black cohash, or you can just take the tablets.

9. Increase your consumption od magnesium and calcium. Foods that contain these are
Apricots


Blackberries
Curry powder
Dates
Figs
Garlic cloves
Malt extract, dried
Molasses, blackstrap
Okra
Peaches
Prunes
Raisins, seedless
Beet greens, common, raw
Brussels sprouts, raw
Chard, Swiss, raw
Kale, raw, leaves without midribs
Kohlrabi, raw
Parsley, raw
Spinach, raw
Turnip green
Apples, raw
Apricots, raw
Blueberries, raw
Cranberries
Grapes
Lamb
Almonds
Beans
Brazil nuts:
Cashew nuts
Cornmeal
Filberts (hazelnuts):
Hickory nuts:
Lentils, mature seeds, dry
Millet, proso, whole grain
Peanut butter
Peanuts
Peas Pecans:
Pistachio nuts:
Rice, brown, raw
Sesame seeds, whole, raw
Walnuts
Wild rice

There are enough foods here to pick what you like.


10.Drink water. You can sometimes "drink away" a headache. To make it easier, just fill up some little dixie cups with the water. If you get a headache or sinus, put 6 little cups full on the edge of the tub. Fill the tub with hot water and a few drops of eucalyptus bath oil. As you relax, drink all those cups of water.

At the first sign of a headache, take a hot bath, keep your feet warm with plenty of warm socks, cover up well, and lay down, maybe with the head elevated. Do whatever gives the most comfort. I personally find it better to go to bed and sleep off a headache, then to try to keep moving and get something done. The jobs take longer and the headache lasts longer when I insist on being up. Howeverk, sometimes a headache will go away with the breathing and posture exercise.