Managing Headaches.
We have all had them.. those pesky headaches. From slight annoyance to knock me down, my head is going to explode. Eating a plant based diet, I have noticed my headaches have decreased tremendously. These are some of the tried and true methods I have used and still used to get rid of headaches.
How to manage headaches:
Drink water. Super simple, but many headaches are caused by dehydration.
Give yourself a scalp massage. Research has shown that massaging the greater occipital nerve (the back of the head at the base of your skull) can relieve headache pain.
Press the webbed area between your thumb and pointer finger. Lightly massage the spot for about one minute before switching to the other hand.
Stretch. Headaches are often caused by muscle tension. Simple neck stretches like these could help relieve some of the tension.
Massage peppermint oil onto your temples, the back of your jaw and your forehead. Peppermint oil has been shown to promote blood flow, which might get things moving in your head.
Drink a cup of coffee. Headaches are often caused by the expanding of blood vessels. The caffeine in coffee constricts these blood vessels, bringing them back down to normal size.
Drink apple cider vinegar. Dilute two tablespoons of ACV into a big glass of water and add a ACV can help restore the body’s acid-alkaline balance and could help with headache pain. Check out my Berry ACV lemonade recipe.
Apply something cool to your temples. The artery that supplies blood to the lining of the brain sits behind the thin bone at the temple. When you’re having a migraine, the lining gets inflamed, so lowering the temperature of the blood passing through that area could relieve some of the throbbing.
Take a hot shower or put a hot compress on the back of your neck. Heat relaxes tense muscles, which could also alleviate the pain caused by a headache.
Eat something spicy. Sprinkle some cayenne pepper onto your food. Cayenne contains an ingredient called capsaicin, which has some control over our pain perception.
