Headaches often get brushed off as nothing more than a usual complaint of ‘stop- complaining-and-get-back-to-work’ type of thing but the pain of headaches can really take a toll. It can make your day to day life miserable forcing you to head to your cabinet for a painkiller. It reaches a point that just a cup of coffee is not enough to split the headaches or leave alone the painkiller. What can you do about this?

First, before reaching out for any assistance, it’s essential to know the several types of headaches. They include: tension headache, cluster headaches, and migraines. The cluster headache is painful and occurs in ‘clusters’ or groups. The tension headache is the most common while migraines range from moderate to severe type of headache.

Luck enough, there are home remedies that you can use to get rid of the pounding headache. The following home remedies are more of drug-free ways that you can use to zap out a headache or at least reduce the severity of the headache.

Drink up

Before rushing to your medicine cabinet, grab yourself a glass of water. Health experts have proved that regularly drinking water can lower down the severity of the headache. Drinking little water amount of water is already a cause of headache; therefore, drinking the right amount will not help you battle the headache but also prevent it. Additionally, drinking enough water helps us to remain hydrated which is vital in preventing headaches.

• Use cayenne

Making use of a spicy ingredient may sound not helpful in curing headache. However, cayenne is one of the natural remedies that treat inflammation and pain. This ingredient achieves this because of a substance found in it known as capsaicin, which inhibits the pain perception in the body that makes you feel pain. Capsaicin depletes the pain perception known as substance P.

If you want to use cayenne, first crush it then dilute it with a little amount of warm water. You can then soak a cotton swab in it and apply the moist swab gently inside each nostril. The burning sensation you’ll feel is a sign of cayenne working.

• Get adequate sleep

Depriving yourself the amount of sleep you take, is detrimental to your overall health in several ways. Sleep deprivation can cause headache in some people. Recent pieces of research show that people who sleep less than six hours per night had more frequent headache compared to those who slept longer. Surprisingly, getting too much sleep can also trigger headaches. Therefore, it is advisable to sleep for seven to nine hours per night and more than that.

• Use essential oils

In one of the previous articles, we discussed about essential oils being highly concentrated liquids that contain several aromatic compounds from multiple plants. Additionally, we saw the many therapeutic benefits of essential oils. The benefits trickle down to reducing the severity of headache and even stopping it. This is all thanks to the essential oils from lavender and peppermint. From research, peppermint essential oil has been proved to reduce the symptoms of tension headaches, while lavender oil proved to be effective at reducing migraine pain.

• Use a cold compress

Soothe the headache pain by applying frozen or cold compresses to the head area or neck to help zap out headache pain by either slowing nerve conduction or decreasing inflammation. You can make the cold compress at home by filling a waterproof bag with ice then wrapping it in a soft towel and applying the compress to the temples, head, or back of the neck.

• Relax with yoga

Yoga is effective in relieving stress, decreasing pain, increasing flexibility, and improving your general health quality. Practicing yoga helps to reduce the frequency as well as the severity of headaches. Therefore, try and practice yoga once in a while to reduce the severity and frequency of headache pains.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a holistic way of treating your recurring headache, then these remedies will be relevant for you. Additionally, if you are tired of popping painkillers pills to treat the pounding headache, these remedies will offer you a natural way of reducing the severity and frequency of headache pains.