Natural Remedies for Headaches & Migraines

Hey there welcome to the stay healthy El Paso podcast. I'm your host Dr. David Middaugh. Specialist, physical therapist over at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy and today I'm going to cover nine natural remedies for headaches and migraines.

Headaches and migraines are so common in our culture today, with the use of computers, desk jobs, we got screens in our house and the wall TVs, we got screens in our pockets, our mobile devices. And then we hop on computer at home all the time too.

Headaches and migraines can definitely plague just about any American at any given time of our lives. So I'm going to cover the nine natural remedies for headaches and migraines with you today.

These types of headaches, we are experts at helping people out and they often are taking pain medications regularly, they may go see a specialist to get specialized pain medications. Sometimes they get injections for it. Oftentimes they're missing work or they're just not able to function daily and be their normal self because of this darn headache and migraine problem.

If you've got some combination of those issues that I just described, you're going to want to hear these nine remedies that you can try at home right now so that you can begin to calm down your headache or migraine problem.

Number One, Ice And Heat

I put these two together because one may work for you and one may not. And a third option is neither may work for you, it's just an option to try out. So using ice on your head, like grab a bag of ice, in a Ziploc bag or put a towel around. You have to find the best method for you. There are ice packs that are out there that are gel and they can conform to your head or body part wherever you want to use it. You can buy those at the grocery store or warehouse stores as well. And just put that wherever you feel like your headache is bothering you.

Now, if you've got a lot of sensitivity to the cold, because that does happen to some people with headaches, then an alternative would be to try heat out if the ice doesn't work out for you and you've tried it out. Great. Scratch that off the list. Now go get heat. So sometimes the same ice packs that you purchased at the store can be heated up in the microwave or some other method. A hot water bottle works really well as well. Those are a little older, but you can use a rice pack, they can heat up in the microwave and put it on over you.

Another option is a towel, just get a small hand towel, dampen it in the sink with some water and microwave it for 30 seconds and it gets nice and steamy. So steamed towel and just put that over your head or wherever you feel like it bothers you. And that's an easy way to get heat onto your head.

Now if you try both of those options and they're not really working for you or they don't work consistently for you, then you just may not be a heat or ice person, I would just scratch it off the list. But oftentimes, ice or heat may be effective enough to bring the headache or migraine pain down just a bit so that you can avoid taking a pain medication, or maybe even avoid going to the doctor and keep it under control so that you can be a little nicer with people around you.

Number Two, Drink Water

Oftentimes, people don't realize how much water they're not drinking. And especially if you have a desk job and you're busy at work and you just are busy with your work and you don't really feel thirsty until the end of the day, it's already kind of late by then you've already become dehydrated. So what you can begin to do moving forward is make sure to get plenty of water and generally 80 ounces or more is good. There are all kinds of measurements out there. What I found is that if you get about five water bottles ranging in size from 16 ounces to 20 ounces or more.

If you make it a point to drink all five of those water bottles every day, you're definitely going to be hydrated. You'll be going to the bathroom a bit more. That's okay though. If your headaches are going away, it's a much better life experience, your quality of life will improve tremendously. And you'd be surprised what difference it could make in your headache and migraine problem.

Number three, reduce screen time.

We are surrounded by screens, they live in our pockets, we are attached to screens a lot. And it does something to your head. There are all these research studies that have been coming out lately about the different shades of light that are coming off of like mobile devices, phone screens, or even television screens, and how they can affect our eyes and our brains that are right behind our eyes.

And with that type of light coming in, it can set off headaches. We've seen trends where kids that are on computers more, using mobile devices more, tend to get more headaches and migraines. And part of it is postural as well, which we'll get into. But if you can reduce your screen time, if it's possible for you to print out that document that you're working on, and handwrite something on it or read a book instead or reading something on a mobile device or on a Kindle or something like that. Don't watch as much TV as you've been watching, find alternative methods to using the screen.

Literally having cut off times where you say I'm only going to be on my phone for this one task. And then that's it. I'm going to stay off of social media which might suck you in, get on to doing different things besides using the screen if you feel like you're using the screen too much, or have screens around you too much, you're probably right and you need to start cutting back on that because of the light that enters your eyes, it could be setting off those headaches and migraines.

And just another side tip about that. If you have to use screens, look at dimming your screen, see what amount of brightness you can bring it down to and still see what you need to see and do what you need to do. And then also there are more settings coming out of computers that control the types of light so that you can get rid of the blue light which is thought to make the which is thought to contribute to headache problems.

Number Four Posture Related To The Screen Time, Consider Your Posture

Whenever you're at a desk looking at a computer or using the mobile device or watching television, if you're slouched over, your head is sticking out particularly this part where your chin is sticking out and you're bent through your neck forward like that. Chances are your postures not good. And you need to find a way to sit up more or recline back onto something with your head, ideally resting on a pillow or some sort of head rest.

Recliners are excellent for this. If you can lean back and the recliner has a head support, that's probably going to be the most comfortable option for you if you're at work using a computer. Ideally, if you had a desk chair that had head support that would be beneficial for you as well. Now, if you don't have either of those options available to you, it's okay you can still improve your posture.

One of the easy things that you can do to improve your posture at a desk or any other time that using the computer screen is to get rid of this head sticking out forward by aaking a baby double chin. Let me just take you through that real quick. If you make a max double chin, okay, nobody's looking just you and me. Do this all the way, make a big double chin and what you should feel are those muscles behind your throat tightening.

Those are the deep neck flexors and they help to get better posture through your neck bones. Now back off on going so hard and do it lightly just to the point where you feel like they're turning on. So for me, it's right there, I can feel them just barely wanting to fire and that is better neck posture for me. So now if I can work at the computer like this, or work on my phone like that, rather than do this, it's going to be a much better situation for my neck joints to all be aligned properly and take pressure off nerves that can contribute to those headache and migraine problems.

Number Five, Exercise

If you are doing some sort of regular exercise, at least a few times a week, whether it's going for a walk or maybe you go to the gym or you partake in some sport or physical activity with your family or kids or whoever it may be. It is a big deal! Getting that regular motion where you sweat, where you work up a little bit of a sweat, you move quite a bit and it's consistent over time. And they do it for 15 minutes, or 20 or 30 or more than it is likely a big contributing factor to your headache and migraine problem.

The fact of the matter is that when we move our arms and legs, there are nerves that travel through our arms and legs that move along with our arms and legs and those nerves are connected to our neck and our brain. And if we're not getting adequate movement throughout our entire body and doesn't get the mobility that it needs, you can begin to get mobility issues within your nervous system.

I've seen it time and time again, once people get on some sort of regular exercise program, their headaches and migraines diminish and eventually go away if that's the biggest factor contributing to their headache and migraine problem.

Number Six, A Shrugging Exercise.

Shrugging is a huge deal for taking pressure off the neck joints, and the neck joints are so critical to have good mobility, and for them to not be stuck so that they don't pinch the nerves that go up and innervate the head. An easy quick thing you could do at your desk, or if you are taking long drives and you're in this posture a little too much, is just tuck that chin into that baby chin tuck, and then shrug and go as high as you can, and hold it there for 10, 20, 30 seconds if you can.

What you should feel is these muscles working in that you need to dig down deep and go as high as you can, without letting your chin jet out like that. Make sure you keep it in, and you might actually feel some pops and clicks happen within your shoulders, sometimes even in the neck. As long as it doesn't hurt. That's okay, you're freeing up a stuck joint that might have been contributing to your headache or migraine problem. Doing that shrug exercise throughout the day can be very beneficial for you to reduce the discomfort and avoid taking a pain medication.

Number Seven, Don't Stretch So Much

People come in to our clinic here that have had headaches and migraines and they've been stretching, they've been grabbing their head and pulling it over, looking down and pulling their head over like this, attempting to stretch out their neck joints and neck muscles. And oftentimes, sadly, they've been told to do this by other medical professionals who just don't quite have a good handle on how to treat headaches and migraines.

It tends to overstretch muscles that are already stretched, and it also tends to overstretch nerves that are aggravated. So even though it may feel good in the moment to get that stretch in long term, it keeps the headache and migraine problem their way longer than it should be.

Number Eight, Get Sleep.

If you're not getting enough sleep, whatever that is for you, because it's not an eight hours one size fits all situation. I can tell you for me, I'm more of a six to seven hour a night person. But if you're not getting enough sleep consistently, then work on getting enough sleep. Make sure you get to bed on time, or at a reasonable time for you and try to plan so that you have enough time before you wake up so that you slept enough.

If you don't get enough rest your nervous system, your nerves, which includes your brain, and all the nerves that come off of it that feed into the headache problems are tired and if they just are getting too much stimulus, like from lights from computer screens, from people talking to you, from sunlight coming outside from things, noises that are around you, all that can overstimulate a tired nervous system and contribute to a migraine and headache problem. So make sure that you track your sleep and get enough of it.

Number Nine Seeing An Expert

This is by far this the best recommendation because if you can see somebody who's a specialist in handling headache and migraine problems, you can speed this process up and get much better control of it. All too often. Whenever we get people with headaches and migraines here in the clinic, they've been dealing with them for years. And if we had talked to them, within a month or two after they began to have more severe headache and stuff migraine problems, they would have been done with it and save themselves all those years of trouble and heartache and taking ibuprofen and seeing doctors and getting injections and seeing specialists.

I've even had patients that go see dentists because they think that it's related to their teeth problem and get their teeth pulled out as recommended by a dentist. And then we get him here in the clinic and do some more specific guided strategic treatments and they clear up and then they have the realization that I could have kept my Moeller I could have avoided all those years, I could have had a better relationship with my spouse and family had I just gotten some expert help sooner.

It's a no brainer when you when you look at it that way. So I strongly encourage you to go get some expert help so that you can get really focused on making sure this problem is not something that's just pestering you throughout the day, and ruining relationships in your work quality in your life quality.

Thanks for listening to our podcast, guys. I appreciate your listenership so much. If you found that this podcast was helpful for you, please please please go over to the podcast platform that you're on, whether it's iTunes or Stitcher, Google playlists, any of those and give us a five star review and put a little blurb on there about why it was helpful for you.

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And it also helps us to get a little more exposure for our podcasts here. Thanks for listening guys. And as always, if you want to reach out to us you can go to our website www.EPmanualPT.com or call us at 915-503-1314 Thanks and have a great day. Bye.

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