Simple Migraine Relief
by Anna Hart
Filed under Relief for Migraines
Migraine headache is a part of migraine – a larger complaint. Yet to many, the pulsating, throbbing headache, often only on one side of the head, is itself a migraine. There may be a preceding aura, but the headache spurs the demand for migraine relief.
Making Your Body Give Migraine Relief
The human body has amazing powers to heal itself, given the opportunity. This natural migraine relief is not only possible, but preferable to prescription medications that offer migraine relief at the price of unwanted side effects.
This migraine relief comes from the release of endorphins. The word “endorphin” means “morphine within”. Just as with morphine prescribed by a physician, endorphin dulls the pain. It is a natural pain killer.
Releasing Endorphins
You can stimulate your body’s natural pain-numbing powers, releasing endorphins into the blood stream and gaining migraine relief with a few simple actions.
1. Burst into laughter. Watch a comedy, look at cartoons, or read a hilarious book. Keep such on hand for migraine relief. Scientists have proven what the Bible said thousands of years ago, “A merry heart does good like a medicine.” Bursting into laughter releases endorphins, and provides almost immediate migraine relief. The body’s “feel-good chemicals” are that close to your fingertips.
2. With fingers or thumb, apply pressure under your eyebrow on the side of the head that is aching. There is a nerve there that can cause your pituitary gland to release endorphins immediately, giving the migraine relief you seek.
3. Cayenne pepper can also stimulate migraine relief by releasing endorphins. Stir 9 or 10 teaspoons of cayenne pepper into a glass of cold water. Drink the water immediately. As the cayenne pepper hits your stomach lining, nerves will convey a message of “pain” to your brain. The brain will release endorphins to counteract the stomach “pain”, and you will get migraine relief.
NOTE: The cayenne pepper does not really cause stomach pain, but nerves transmit the stomach’s reaction as pain.
Additional Natural Migraine Relief
Your body can provide its own migraine relief in other ways, too. Massage the crown of your head, consciously relaxing your entire body as you do so. Massage your ears, including ear lobes. Cool your nerves and muscles by placing a cold compress on your forehead or behind the neck. The body responds to all of these with migraine relief.
Your body knows instinctively how to kill, or at least numb, pain with its own endorphins. It was created to do that. It has that ability from birth. For centuries, natural endorphins were man’s only pain killer – the only migraine relief. You can, however, cripple that ability.
It has been shown that those who take synthetic pain killers actually increase their sensitivity to pain. That means that every pain killer that you take, prescription or not, will make migraine relief less likely.
Ongoing Migraine Relief
Immediate migraine relief at the onset of an episode is the main goal of most migraineurs. You can have ongoing migraine relief, however, through a regular exercise program. Such a program, done consistently, will help improve your response to stressors in life, and release endorphins.
While all these relief suggestions sound like a good solution for migraine relief, I wonder if you have any remarks from anyone who has tried them. I am a migraine sufferer, and have tried a myraid of treatments both medical and natural. The pain is indescribable, and I wonder who can bring themselves to laughter in the midst of a migraine. All the massage in the world does not truly help. I will try the cayenne pepper, and hope that it works. Interestingly, I have been tested and shown that my brain does not make adequate seratonin, norapinepherin, and dopamine. It seems, therefore to make sense that an endorphin release would help. I also find, though, that exercise makes migraines worse, because after the rush of endorphins, there is a crash a few hours later. I take amino acid supplements as well as others to help with this. I would be intersted to learn more from your website.
Hi Amy,
I wasreading your comment on the,”www.migrainereliefblog.com” and like you I have been suffering from migraine headaches since more than twenty years, and I have tried every medicine there is, and have been treated by various doctors including a neurologist and a chiropractor, but nothing has helped much. Did you try the cayenne pepper remedy? did it help? Please, let me know.
Thank you,
Ana.
Cayenne pepper for a migraine…my wife suffers from migraines. There is a cayenne pepper-based nasal spray (Sinus Buster) that promised relief for her. Desperate for anything to help that was not a drug (Zomig works but it’s best to avoid drugs as much as possible), I ordered a bottle of it. I was the test subject, of course, and I took a snort to see how much it burned. The site describes it as a “bite” from the capsaicin, but the truth is it burned like the fires of hell. The pain is intense for about five seconds and then subsides quickly. I warned her of what to expect, and she took it when she felt a headache coming on. The headache went away immediately. Even on those days when the migraine would normally be unstoppable (rainy days, for instance), the spray can knock it down to a dull thud. She let her nephew try it (the headaches are a family curse) and it got rid of his immediately also. It’s working for her and I am thankful for it. We tried cayenne pills, also, but they give both her and I heartburn.
I will certainly try the nose spray. I have had migraines for over 40 years. I had brain surgery about 7 years ago for 2 aneurysms and a lesion and, for unknown reasons, the migraines got worse. My last job of 25 years as a director in a local hospital was ended in 2007 due to the severity and frequency of the migraines. I take Imitrex and it works immediately; however, i was developing a heart problem and cannot take the Imitrex like I was (I was taking it 2 to 5 times a day and about 4 to 7 days a week – every time I had a migraine.) Now I am on disability and hating it as I am not a “stay at home” type person at all. However, having a migraine and no relief in sight, I just have to stay at home in bed when one hits. I will definitely try the pepper spray (gee, that sounds like the self-defense spray, doesn’t it?ha!) thanks for the tip
The only cure I have found for my chronic migraines is to eat a completely raw, vegetarian diet. The raw fruits and vegetables have live enzymes which assist in digestion. I completely avoid gluten, salt and sugar which are my worst triggers.
I also suffer from monthly migraines and as I get older, they get worse. I just tried the cayenne. I saw this in a magazine. I put a little cayenne pepper in the nostril on the side of the headache and snorted it. Wow, my eyes watered, it burned, but Voila, NO MORE MIGRAINE! I am astonished, wish I would have found this years ago.
I was wondering, as someone mentioned the migraines being in the family and i suffer just like my Mother, if they really are a family inherited phenomonom and if there is therefore a specific gene code for migraine troubles?
Thanks for the tips about the cayenne pepper – i will order some in for both me and my Mother.
Plunging your hands into hot water, as hot as you can stand it helps drain blood away from the brain and down to you hands. It helps a little, and if you put something cold at the base of your head/neck it will help a bit more.