Have you ever been in an important meeting when you suddenly felt a throbbing pain in your head that you just can’t concentrate anymore? Have you experienced getting really excited about a date or a concert for days, but when it’s about to start, your nasty headache just attacks you? These are really disappointing situations that could happen to anyone.
Headache comes in many forms, but when it attacks you, it can be really taxing. To ensure that you’d have a great day without the interference of a headache, here are the most effective ways on how to prevent its next attack on you.
- Study yourself and get to know your health and lifestyle better. Know the primary causes of your headache so you’ll be equipped with more ways to prevent and cure it. Do you sleep up late every night? Are you an alcohol drinker? Do you smoke? Do you have a history of migraine? These questions and other medical history should help you identify the right approaches of treating your headache.
- Do some stretching. If you are not a fan of simple, home exercises, now is the right time to start. Stretching can actually help relieve muscle tension that adds to the pain in the head. Make sure to focus on neck stretches as most tension headaches originate from the head. Make it a habit to do a 20-minute stretching exercise in the morning and in the afternoon.
- And since you have already started with stretching, continue to engage in aerobic exercise. According to National Pain Foundation, doing regular aerobic exercises a few minutes every day can minimize the frequency and intensity of migraine attacks. Examples of aerobic exercises you can try are biking, swimming, and brisk walking.
- Another type of exercise that you need to learn and practice is relaxation exercises. These include relaxing to music, proper deep breathing, and using mental imagery that helps a patient unwind and relieve stress. The idea of relaxation exercises is to consciously relax tight and stressed muscle groups that may be causing your headache.
- In relation to relaxation, you may also want to get a massage to relieve your headache. Whether you do it to yourself or have a masseuse give a massage to your, it will provide temporary relief. To do it on your own, apply essential oil to your hands and rub your temples. The pain will momentarily disappear, but once you feel it again, you will have to repeat the massage.
- Acupuncture is an alternative medicine treatment than can prevent acute migraines and chronic tension headaches. This is done by inserting thin needles under the skin of certain parts of the head and face to realign the flow of energy.
- Another alternative medicine option in preventing headache is chiropractic treatment. With this procedure, spinal manipulation and nerve adjustments are done. Since most tension headaches originate from injured tissues in the neck, chiropractic manipulation can restore the mobility of the tissue and function of the injured nerve, eliminating the pain in your head.
- Biofeedback is another popular approach to prevent the outburst of tension headaches and migraines. It uses electronic sensors that enables monitoring of body functions including heart rate, blood pressure, skin temperature, and muscle tension, and teaches patients how to control their bodily responses, i.e. how to ease tight muscles to prevent headache.
- The heat and cold therapy is another way to prevent and cure headache. By applying heat at the back of the neck, neck tightness will improve; while icing the temples will relieve a pulsating headache. This is considered a no-risk therapy as it is safe even for pregnant women.
- Do you know that there are foods that can easily alleviate headaches? If you must, try consuming coffee, banana, spices, bread, and salad and see how the pain in your head slowly goes away. Headache may also be triggered by certain food and drinks. If you know what your triggers are, better to skip them altogether.
With these proven headache busters, you will be able to fight the irritating pain in your head even before it attacks you.