Headaches

Almost every one of us has experienced a headache in our lives. Some have it throbbing, some have it on the forehead, some have it on one side of the head. Whatever the kind of headache, it's annoying especially for people who have frequent headaches or have some kind of chronic headaches or migraines.
I've myself had migraines for many years since childhood. But I've had an enormous relief during the past one year.
During my quest to cure myself of the headaches, I've learned a lot about the reason for these aches and have reduced the frequency of my headaches and can most of the times even get relief from a headache without medication.
Some of the possible reasons for headaches:

• Stress
• Self Criticism
• Negative belief about certain conditions inducing headaches (e.g., sun, strong smells, certain foods etc.)
• Feeling of being out of flow in life

How to Cure:

• Get comfortable with the reasons for your headaches - For example, most of my headaches were induced by going out in the bright sun. I came across a technique called "Sunning" (by William Bates) to make myself and my eyes comfortable in sun. You can benefit from the sun by simply letting the sun shine on your closed eyelids for about a minute or two. Close you eyelids and face the sun. Then, move your head slowly such that the sun rays warm even the corners of your eyes and the temples. Breathe deeply while sunning and enjoy the sun energizing your eyes and forehead. Do NOT open your eyes while doing this and facing the sun. To avoid any harmful effects due to ultraviolet radiations and for best results, perform this in the morning or evening. This technique is part of the Bates method for improving vision. Sunning is an ancient tradition in India. Sun is the source of life and sunlight energizes the entire visual system. 
• Relax - There could be many techniques like a head or a body massage, sleeping, enjoying with friends, dancing or whatever you like. I have devised a simple exercise that could make you feel relaxed anywhere and anytime and helps while you are having a headache. While taking a deep and slow breath in, feel yourself getting relaxed, imagine the oxygen you breathe relaxing your nerves in the head, your pain melting away, your eyebrows and the skin around your forehead relaxing, glow coming back to your skin and you enjoying this simple yet exhilarating breath. Then breathe out all the stress and feel the pain getting released and the headache going away. The headache may go away in a few breaths or a few minutes. 
• Tea - Sometimes a simple cup of tea can help during a headache. 
• Aromatherapy - Some herbs like lavender, peppermint, eucalyptus can help a headache. There are balms or aromatherapy gels/lotions that can be used to massage the head. 
• Practice yoga and meditation - Practicing regularly will eliminate your stress and headaches and will also help you maintain an overall great health. This will also improve your breathing. So, this is a great catch - while curing your headaches, also get a great mind and body and reduce weight :) 
• Get your vision tested - Sometimes headaches may be due to eyesight fluctuations. So, make sure that's not one of the reasons. 
• Love yourself and forgive yourself  - This is most important and is vital if you want to lead a healthy and happy life. So, whenever you catch yourself criticising yourself or someone else or a situation, use some wisdom from Shakespeare - realize that life is just a stage and we are all actors here :) 
• Life is perfect - Just be sure that all is well in life and nothing happening around you deserves stress. The happiness is in enjoying the moment NOW.

I hope this helps you the next time you have a headache.
I'd be happy to hear your stories about relieving headaches, please leave your comments..

Stress and Health

Health is one of the major concerns in the present-day world. Compared to ancient India, much of the treatment in urban India is currently focused on modern medicine and surgeries.
Most of the modern medicine is based on the treatment of symptoms. Treating the symptom with medicines just removes the body signal of the actual problem leaving the body to fight it. In the meantime, we go about the usual business thinking that since the symptom is absent, we are healed.
Many people with chronic diseases like migraines, sinusitis, asthma go on getting their symptoms treated and expect their diseases to get treated. In turn, they get used to the recurrence of the symptoms and higher dose of medication each time. The same goes for diabetes and hypertension patients. The cycle of medicine becomes never-ending resulting in side effects to other parts of the body. Ultimately, this results in a perpetual reliance on medicines.
So, you can see how this pharmaceutical and health industry thrives even in the worst of times. And how unaware people keep on neglecting the actual source of their health issues.

Each kind of body ailment is due to a different kind of stress (mostly mental and sometimes bodily) that a person takes upon. If that source of stress is removed, the body ailment and also its symptom would go away.
For example, a person with high blood pressure has various symptoms like weight gain/loss, blurred vision, fatigue, anger or sometimes excessive symptoms like heart attack etc. Taking a medication for controlling the blood pressure would be a way to just avoid having symptoms. But the actual treatment would be to find out why the blood pressure is high - in most cases which is fat deposits in the arteries of the heart. Some of the causes could be stress/negative thinking, overeating (which may again have an emotional reason) etc.

In the early stages of health deterioration, exercise (this also creates a feeling of well being by releasing feel good hormones called "endorphins) and maintaining good mental health by removing unnecessary stress will make sure that most of the health issues go away.

Keeping a positive outlook or de-stressing sounds easy to many people. But for someone who has lived in a stressful environment or has had a difficult/traumatic past, such a mental state is the most difficult to attain.
For those people, many alternate techniques like yoga or therapies like acupressure and counselling would definitely help change the attitude towards circumstances and life and hence would positively affect the well being of the person. It is scientifically proven that a positive attitude makes the immune system stronger. So, the body is able to fight different infections better.

So, the next time you get sick, think of what has been going on in your mind recently. Try to get a different perspective of your situation, exercise and eat well and make a commitment to yourself that "I AM WELL." This commitment itself and its true feeling results in a healthy and confident state of mind.