You get home from work after spending extra hours at the office dealing with back-to-back meetings. You look around the house and there are piles of laundry, dirty footprints from the bottoms of your child’s shoes, and a spouse who looks upset that you’re late again. You feel frustrated, your head is pounding, you’re overly sensitive to noise and light, and overall, your migraine is completely unbearable. With your head pounding and your ears making you to want to scream, you open up your medicine cabinet and some pharmaceutical medications to relieve the migraine, or at least cover it up for a period of time. As time progresses and night rolls in, your migraine begins to slowly fade away. But there are natural ways to relieve migraines you should consider first.
While it’s easy to take a pill or two to mask the symptoms and pain, ultimately, this doesn’t deal with the underlying cause. In addition, masking symptoms by overusing medications can have countless detrimental side effects, affecting both your physical and mental health. However, there are some remarkable natural ways to relieve migraines. And you probably these items have stored in your kitchen or house at the moment.
Your daily habits reflect your physical and mental health every day. The choices you make upon waking, while at work, or in the drive thru of your favorite fast food restaurant will no doubt impact your life from every angle. Therefore, you must make healthy and wise choices a priority. If you experience stress day in day out, you may find it easy to brush it off as the norm. But you could end up develop more serious chronic conditions such as Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS). Unfortunately, if this occurs, you may no longer be capable of completing ordinary everyday tasks, you will come to learn. Eating healthy, sleeping well, and reducing stress can prevent conditions like AFS from developing, and can relieve your migraines and headaches as well.
You may be wondering, how can migraines possibly be related to AFS? Keep in mind your body was created in an amazing way and your biological clock keeping your entire system working cohesively. This means that when one system, organ, hormone, or molecule in your body is out of sync and not functioning properly, every other system in your body can be affected over time or sometimes, even immediately. When you put your body in a situation in which it’s dealing with stress around the clock, there can be detrimental consequences to your health. Whereas a small amount of stress can be good, chronic and prolonged stress is not. Chronic stress lead to overworked adrenal glands, which are located above your kidneys. Upon experiencing a traumatic event or external stressor, the adrenal glands aid your body in returning to homeostasis. The adrenal glands pump out hormones to combat stress, which can disrupt your NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) Stress Response system. If this occurs, you may develop AFS. Although no studies have directly linked migraines to adrenal weakness, it is not unusual for advanced sufferers of AFS to report worsening of migraine headaches. Other associated symptoms can include unexplained hair loss, lack of sexual drive, inability to lose weight, sugar imbalances, mild depression, low thryoid function, sleep onset insomnia, inability to complete ordinary daily tasks, and chronic lethargy or feeling weak.
Lifestyle habits, level of stress, relationships, and sleep all have an impact on your health. Migraines are extremely uncomfortable to deal with, so it’s understandable that any sufferer would want to find an easy way out—taking a pill to hasten the relief from pain. Nonetheless, you can decrease your risk of migraines altogether by improving your diet, reducing your stress levels, etc. As an alternative to conventional medical approaches that use medication to treat migraines, here are some natural ways to relieve migraines. First, let’s begins with making wise choices. Eating plant-based foods found in nature can be beneficial for migraines. Increase your intake of fresh fruits and vegetables, fatty fish and other seafood, and healthy fats such as extra virgin olive oil, as well as nuts, seeds, and legumes. Reduce your intake of excessive amounts of coffee or caffeinated beverages including some types of tea. Eliminate alcohol from your diet completely, since it damages your health, messes with your hormones, makes it more difficult to recover from AFS, and can lead to a decline in cognitive health. By improving your diet and lifestyle, you should begin to see improvements in your mood, physical health, and AFS symptoms, and hopefully, less frequent migraines.
There is no such thing as a magic pill. Although it may be convenient to enjoy junk food all night while watching a movie cuddled up on the couch with a loved one, or to eat fast food during your extremely short lunch break at work, it will eventually take its toll on your health, whether you see this immediately or not. You cannot fill your body with processed food, deep-fried junk, hydrogenated oils, and refined sugars and expect your physical health to stay in a good condition. At the same time, you cannot expect a magical pill, pharmaceutical medicine, or herbal supplement to be a substitute for natural food and water. Your body simply does not work that way. Whether you are looking for natural ways to relieve migraines or you have a niggling cold that won’t go away, a healthy diet can make your recovery both faster and easier.
You may be surprised, but checking your water intake should be one of the first steps you take when experiencing a headache or migraine. When you have a migraine, your body is usually trying to tell you something is missing. Perhaps you are lacking a certain vitamin or mineral, are totally dehydrated, or just need a break from stress! If you find it difficult to drink adequate amounts of water throughout the day, try keeping track of your water intake and reward yourself when you do well. Ultimately, water is one of the main building blocks of your cells that make up your body. Dehydration can slowly begin to affect your health, whether you recognize the symptoms immediately or not. Aim to drink water upon waking, between meals, and throughout the day while at work or school.
Amazingly, celery has been linked to reducing migraines and can even prevent them from developing in the future. Try eating more celery with your breakfast or juice it up with your favorite vegetables and fruits.
Certain supplements may be able to bring wonderful relief from migraines, free of side effects. These include high quality and healthy sources of fish oil, omega-3 fatty acids, coenzyme Q10, vitamin D, vitamin E, magnesium, and potassium.
Magnesium is nature’s painkiller and is known to be one of the best natural ways to relieve migraines. Better still, it is free of all the side effects that come along with many pharmaceutical medications. Countless studies have linked an increase in migraines with low levels of magnesium in the body. Magnesium has also been shown to block the pain-transmitting chemicals in your brain, even preventing a wave of brain signaling known as cortical-spreading depression. So, toss out the over-the-counter medications and just take 200 to 600 milligrams of magnesium a day instead. You can also eat foods that are high in magnesium such as nuts and seeds, beans, chocolate, squash, broccoli, leafy green vegetables, and whole grains. Incredibly, increasing your dosage of magnesium could decrease the frequency of your migraines or headaches. It’s important to bear in mind that every body is different, and will have individual needs and conditions. That being said, prior to starting any new supplement, food, or exercise, it’s important to consult your health care professional for advice on what may work for you and what may actually backfire more than aid.
Many holistic doctors advise cutting out all sources of gluten from your diet completely to reduce or prevent migraines. Numerous studies have linked gluten to increased migraine pain, thus, eliminating it from your diet may improve your condition, and at the same time, could also improve your energy levels.
Of the various natural remedies to relieve migraines, peppermint oil is another wonderful choice—it’s not just for winter cookies and chocolate bark. Peppermint oil and extracts can soothe muscles, improve blood flow, and reduce the pain and other side effects of migraines. Some studies have demonstrated that peppermint oil taken with ethanol may reduce headache sensitivity. Lavender oil is another great essential oil that reduces stress and can also improve AFS, and may be one of the best natural remedies to relieve migraines quickly. Moreover, lavender oil is soothing and a great mood stabilizer.
Integrate these into your diet:
Other natural food items known to be natural ways to relieve migraines are spinach, cauliflower, cabbage, eggplant, bell peppers, oranges, watermelons, and grapefruit. So clearly, eating a diet full of various fruits and vegetables leads to improved physical wellbeing.
In addition to eating healthy, engaging in physical activities that suit your current state of health and improving your lifestyle habits are vital to your emotional and psychological health, as well as natural ways to relieve migraines. When you put in a continual effort and strive hard to mend your unhealthy relationships, fix your emotional health, and clear your mind of unhealthy cluttered thoughts, your physical and mental health will improve drastically.
This one might seem like an odd piece of advice when it comes to natural ways to relieve migraines, but a myriad of studies have confirmed that, indeed, your emotions play a major role in your health. That goes for both your mental and physical health. Holding in anger, resentment, envy, jealousy, excessive sadness, or remorse can be create a foundation for chronic health conditions, some that happen immediately and others that show up down the road.
© Copyright 2018 Michael Lam, M.D. All Rights Reserved.
Amazingly, there is a direct correlation between your health and social life. When you let go of internal emotions, improve your social pleasures, and mend your various relationships, your health will improve as well. Make time for loved ones to remarkably improve your mood and energy.
