Disclosure: This is a collaborative post.
If you experience migraines often, the best thing you can do is adopt a healthy lifestyle and learn your triggers. However, even when you try to avoid triggers, you might still find yourself getting a migraine. Sometimes, migraines start without warning and can negatively affect your day. You can find ways to ease the pain. Here are some of the quick ways to at least reduce migraine pain.
Drink plenty of water
For starters, ensure you hydrate thoroughly in between attacks and whenever you feel a migraine coming on. Drinking plenty of water can reduce the length of your migraines and reduce dehydration, which is a major trigger.
Try mindful meditation
Mindful meditation is a form of stress management that helps you focus on the present rather than your pain. For instance, you could try and shut out all your thoughts and feelings and focus on your breathing.
Reduce exposure to bright light
Being exposed to bright lights activates the pain-transmitting cells in your brain, making your migraine worse. Loud sounds have also been reported to be a major cause of migraines. Try sitting in a dark and quiet room for thirty minutes to reduce your migraine symptoms and hopefully get some sleep. There are chemicals released when you sleep that are known to ease migraine pain.
Take medication
You should also talk to a qualified doctor to help with ways
to mitigate frequent attacks and reduce pain when it pops in. There exists
preventive headache medications you can take to reduce the
frequency and severity of your attacks. Most of the medications adapted to
treat migraines were initially made for other purposes, such as depression and
high blood pressure. These drugs were then found to be useful for relieving
migraines.
Note: Avoid taking any migraine
medications without guidance of a qualified doctor.
Massage your temples
Massaging your temples during an attack can help relax the muscles and alleviate the pain. However, this method might not work for people who suffer from allodynia, a symptom of migraines that makes them sensitive to touch. Allodynia causes normal activities such as resting your head on a pillow to become more painful than usual.
Apply a cold compress
Using an ice pack on the back of your head or across your forehead creates a numbing effect and distracts your brain from the chronic pain. Ensure you place a barrier between your skin and the ice pack for extra protection. If you are using a commercial ice pack, ensure no leaks that could damage your eyes.
Try essential oils
Essential oils such as lavender have a soothing effect and can reduce stress, depression and relieve pain from a migraine. Try aromatherapy by inhaling lavender essential oil for 15minutes whenever you feel an attack coming on.
Manage attacks with exercise
It is not advisable to exercise during an attack to worsen the pain. But you can try some light aerobic exercises such as walking in between attacks to help lessen the frequency and duration of your migraines.
Wrap up
Migraines can have very devastating effects, and the one thing you would want to feel is relief from the chronic pain. There are many preventive steps and methods you can use to ease migraine. That said, seek medical help if the natural ways don’t work.
