ANTI-HEADACHE TECHNIQUE #14: DEEP RELAXATION WITH MUSCLE TENSING

March 23, 2009

More thorough man the previous method, this technique lakes you into deeper levels of relaxation from which you can continue straight on into Biofeedback or Creative Imagery. It is an essential preliminary to Techniques #15 and #16. Choose a quiet room where you will not be disturbed and unplug the phone. Lie down on a comfortable bed, couch or floor rug with a low pillow under the head. Begin by frowning and looking upwards. Hold for six seconds and release.

Press the tongue against the front teeth and squeeze all of the face tightly together. Hold for six seconds and release.

Press the back of the head down on the pillow so that you raise the neck and shoulders off the bed or floor. Hold six seconds and release. Roll the neck loosely from side to side several tunes.

Tense the neck and shoulder muscles as rightly as possible. Hold six seconds and release. Tense the chest muscles as tightly as you can. Hold six seconds and release.

Raise the right arm six inches off the bed or floor and clench the fist. Tense as tightly as possible from the shoulder down. Hold for six seconds and release. Do the same with the left arm.

Tense the abdomen muscles tightly. Hold for six seconds and release. Tense both buttocks tightly. Hold six seconds and release.

Raise the right leg six inches off bed or floor, curl the toes, and tense the entire leg and foot as tightly as you can. Hold for six seconds, release and lower the leg. Repeat with the left leg.

Next, take five slow, deep breaths, filling the abdomen as well as the upper chest each time. Then resume normal breathing.

Stay relaxed. Place the awareness on the soles of the feet. Silently say to yourself. “My feet feel relaxed. Relaxation is filling my feet. My feet are deeply relaxed. Relaxation is filling my legs. My lower legs are limp and relaxed. Relaxation is filling my thighs. My thighs fed limp and relaxed.” You don’t have to repeat these exact words. But give yourself essentially the same suggestions. An you mentally relax tech body part, place your awareness on that area and visualize it as limp end relaxed, for example, you might picture your thighs filled with cotton end at limp and relaxed as a piece of tired, old rope.

Continue felling yourself, “My buttocks feel limp and relaxed. My buttock feel as if they ere filled with cotton. My abdomen is limp end relaxed. My shoulders and neck are limp and relaxed. My arms and hands are limp and relaxed. My whole body feels as limp and relaxed as a rag doll.”

If you locale any area of tension, mentally relax it before going on.

Now place the awareness on the face as you say, “My forehead feels smooth and relaxed. My scalp is relaxed. My eyes are quiet. My eyes are deeply relaxed. My face is soft and relaxed. My tongue is relaxed. My mouth is telexed. My jaw is stock”

Be especially watchful for any areas of tension in the eyes, temple or jaw. Repeat these suggestions, as you visualize these areas filled with cotton, until the tension subsides.

Finally, tell yourself. “My entire body and mind are deeply relaxed. I am in a state of deep relaxation.”

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THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS TO USE TEMPERATURE THERAPY FOR HEADACHE RELIEF.

? Warming the Hands and Feet. Warming the hands and feet by immersing them in very warm water is an effective way to end a migraine attack. It can abort a migraine in Stage 2 or it can squelch a migraine headache that has already begun. In fact, warming the hands and feet with water temporarily accomplishes the same effect as does biofeedback (Technique #15). The difference is that warming the extremities in water is a temporary expedient, while the effects of biofeedback are much longer-lasting.

To get started, you need a small footbath or bucket just large enough to immerse both feet above the ankles. Place the footbath so that, while seated, you can also immerse both hands above the wrists in a washbasin or bucket.

For both hands and feet, most people seem to prefer a water temperature just above 110°F. Keep a hot faucet running slowly so that every five minutes you can swiftly refill both the hand and foot baths to maintain both blood vessels in both hands and feet, to, blood flow to the extremities will increase. This draws blood away from bloated arteries in the head and into the hands and feet. As a result, pressure on arteries in the head decrease and the arteries gradually return to normal size. Within 15 or 20 minutes, many migraine headaches will have been aborted or greatly diminished.

The warmth also stimulates nerve endings in hands and feet which creates a counterstimulation effect in the brain. According to reports from headache clinics, hand and feet warming works well for at least 50 percent of migraine sufferers.

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HERBALS FOR HEADACHES

While most doctors scorn herbal remedies, they are, according to the World Health Organization, still used as primary treatment for half the world’s population. Considering the mediocre record of pharmaceutical drugs, it seems that herbal remedies are often as effective and in some cases more so. Indeed, some contemporary drugs, such as digitalis, are still derived from herbs.

But nowadays, pharmaceutical companies prefer to use chemical analogs so that they can manipulate active ingredients to minimize side effects, as well as to secure patent rights and to lengthen shelf life. Thus mainstream medicine continues to ignore herbs. The FDA regards them as food. And the majority remain unregulated and freely available.

Although herbs are natural, organic alternatives to drugs— with side effects, if any, that are mild by comparison— cafe is required for self-medication. For example, if one cup of a herb tea per day is beneficial, it doesn’t follow that three cups is better. Nor should herbs ever be smoked. As previously stated, the long-term effects of taking most herbs has not been studied.

Nowadays, most larger health food stores have a herbal section with a wide array of herbs and herb teas, both in bulk and packaged. But it is often hard to find herbs in smaller towns.

Herbs for headache relief usually work prophylactically and you may have to take the remedy for several weeks before optimal results appear. Nowadays, too, most herbalist* prefer to prescribe a blend of several herbs in order to broaden the treatment. Most herbal remedies for migraine use feverfew as the core but add other herbs like sage or skullcap which are believed to be powerful artery constrictors.

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THE LIMITED BENEFITS OF HEADACHE DRUGS

Based on a series of double-blind studies at leading university medical centers, approximately one-third of the beneficial effect of drugs comes not from any pharmaceutical action but from the body-mind’s own placebo effect. The placebo effect stems from the patient’s belief in a therapy rather than from the therapy itself.

Through the faith of believing in a medication or therapy, hope is aroused, and the mind begins to work independently of the treatment. It begins to harness the body’s own natural healing powers. Among the principal healing forces mobilized by the placebo effect are endorphins and enkephalins. Through a combination of nondrug therapies— positive thinking and rhythmic exercise, for example— endorphin is often released in such amounts that these hormones can completely block severe headache pain.

A dramatic example of the placebo effect is seen when headache sufferers who believe they have a brain tumor are told by a physician that they do not. At least half of these patients show immediate and significant improvement. Their joy and relief releases clouds of endorphin that effectively block every pain receptor in the brain. As they experience this exhilarating feeling of pain-free ease, their mood soars into a euphoric state of high-level wellness. For many, this transformation from helplessness to joy is proof that they can overcome their chronic headaches without drugs.

Those pain impulses that survive the spinal cord gate and the activity of enkephalins and endorphins in themidbrain are relayed on through the hypothalamus and pituitary glands to the cortex, where pain perception actually occurs.

Here again, the extent of pain actually felt is controlled by the balance between norepinephrine and serotonin. Depletion of either can lead to depression. It hardly seems surprising then that chronic headache and depression so frequently occur together.

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BENIGN RECURRENT HEADACHES

Two types of benign headaches exist: Muscle Contraction Headaches and Vascular Headaches.

Muscle Contraction or Tension Headaches account for the vast majority of headaches. Almost invariably they are caused by unresolved emotional stress which is translated through the fight-or-flight response into abnormal contraction of the shoulder, neck and scalp muscles. There are two classes of tension headaches.

Acute tension headaches are isolated headaches generally caused by stress. They can normally be relieved by OTC drugs or by natural therapies and medical help is seldom required.

Chronic tension headaches persist day after day without relief. Many chronic tension headaches axe linked to anxiety and depression and can continue without letup for years. Drugs serve only to temporarily relieve symptoms. The only treatment that really works is Cognitive Positivism (Technique #17).

Some variants of tension headaches are combination tension-vascular headaches, including exertion headaches, and those associated with temporomandibular joint syndrome, or TMJ.

Vascular Headaches. Usually caused by unresolved emotional stress, which triggers the fight-or-flight response, these headaches are set in motion by a complex series of biochemical reactions that cause changes in blood vessels and in blood flow in the head.

Whether or not the fight-or-flight response sots off a muscle contraction headache, or a vascular headache, or no headache at all, appears to depend on an individual’s personal neurological chemistry. Headache specialists prefer to say that one person may have a biochemical predisposition to tension headaches, for example, while another may have a predisposition to migraine headaches. In either case, the headache mechanism it set in motion when the tight-or-flight response is invoked.

The most common vascular headache is migraine, which has several variants; some exertion headaches; hangover, caffeine withdrawal; ice cream; hunger; and menstrual headaches. Cluster headaches are another type of vascular headache.

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