Natural Headache Relief

Natural headache relief is possible. If you suffer from a chronic headache condition, you are probably disappointed with how little benefit you receive from over-the-counter headache medicines or even prescription pain relievers. However, you have cause for hope. We are going to share with you our top tips for getting rid of headaches the natural way. We’re going to conclude with a natural therapy that has found a great degree of success in case studies.

Manage Your Stress

The most common type of headache is the aptly-named tension headache. When stress or tension build up in the body, they can cause headaches in a number of ways. For example, stress often causes the muscles of the neck and shoulders to tighten up.  This, in turn, leads to a headache. In fact, you probably notice that many of your headaches begin with a stiff neck. Also, stress triggers the release of cortisol and other hormones that help the body to cope. The downside is that sudden hormone fluctuations can trigger headaches for patients with certain conditions such as migraines.

If you find that stress is a common trigger for your headache, what can you do? Here are a few suggestions that may give you natural relief of your headaches:

• Take a break – Whether it is a 15-minute break without the phone, just so you can stretch and walk around a little (or even take a nap), or it’s a week at the beach, know when it is time to give yourself a break.
• Start a new hobby – Any relaxing hobby will do. Just make sure you have an outlet for creative energy or for stress.
• Get some exercise – The hormones released during exercise make you feel good and fight against the stress hormones.
• Try a supplement – Ashwagandha is currently popular for stress relief, and some research has found that it can lower cortisol levels when taken daily for a couple of months.

Just be careful not to fall into negative stress coping mechanisms. For example, many people drink or smoke to escape their anxieties. However, both of these habits can increase the frequency of headaches.

Increase Your Water Intake

Headaches are one of the earliest symptoms of dehydration. Therefore, drinking plenty of water is important if you regularly get headaches. Even if only a very small percentage of your headaches are related to hydration, this is still a cheap and easy way to get some natural relief. You should be drinking eight 8-ounce glasses of water per day, and more if you have a condition like kidney stones or you live somewhere that is particularly hot and dry.

You may be able to download an app to help you track how much water you drink. A tracking app may reveal that you were not drinking nearly as much water as you thought. Plus, a little extra water will not harm your body, so even if your headaches are not hydration related, you will only get benefits from increasing your water intake.

Get Better Sleep

Any changes to your sleep schedule can be responsible for triggering a headache. It can be too much sleep, not enough sleep, or waking up too often to get deep sleep. So how can you regulate your sleep schedule, get better sleep, and possibly get natural headache relief?

Here are a few tricks:

• Have a regular schedule – If you go to sleep at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning, you can train your body so that the right hormones are produced and other changes take place at the correct time to put you to sleep and wake you up.
• No mobile devices in bed – One minute you are bouncing from one social media account to another to see what happened during the day and to respond to posts. The next thing you know, the sun is coming up and your alarm goes off. Even if that has never happened to you, just using mobile devices in bed may throw off the body’s process of winding down since the brain may confuse the light from the screen for daylight.
• Replace your pillow and choose a good sleep position – Sleeping on your stomach is terrible for your neck and spine in general. Whether you sleep on your side or on your back, you need to have the right pillow firmness to keep your head level.

Finding Natural Headache Relief with Upper Cervical Chiropractic

Upper cervical chiropractic involves the precise and gentle correction of subluxations of the C1 and C2 vertebrae (the atlas and axis). Since these bones protect the brainstem and help facilitate blood flow to the brain, their proper positioning can play a key role in reducing or even eliminating headaches. If you are unfamiliar with this subspecialty of chiropractic, the most important things for you to know are that it is highly focused, uses diagnostic imaging techniques for precision, and doesn’t involve any twisting or popping of the spine.  

If you have been struggling to find natural relief for your chronic headaches, contact an upper cervical practitioner in your area to schedule a consultation. You may have just found the safe and effective way to get long-term relief from your headaches without having to take pain relievers on a regular basis. To learn more, use the search feature on this site to locate one of our preferred doctors in your area, and get ready to unlock your body’s full healing potential.

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