Therapeutic Massage

Brigitte Wellman, www.brigittewellmann.com

Sue Carberry, www.integratedbodywork.com

Pregnancy and Postnatal Massage & Reflexology

Furthermore, our idea of what good posture is does not always accord with what is biomechanically the most efficient and effective way to sit, stand or move. We think good posture means chin up, shoulders back and back straight – but in fact, good posture means something different for each person’s individual body needs. With the exception of a few core muscles in the torso, hips and legs, our muscles are not required to hold us up against gravity. Our spine is formed in such a way to be able to do this by itself (mostly). So what can be done to improve one’s posture? I.e. to transfer the work away from the muscles that habitually ache (lower back, shoulders, neck etc) and back to the very deepest core muscles and more importantly, the spine.

There are any number of movement systems that explore this process: The Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method, Yoga, and Pilates to name a few. I encourage you to explore these options to see which method you prefer. Each system explores how we use our bodies, and how we can increase the efficiency of how we move (or remain still). This process often involves the relationship between the mind, body, and the breath. Just as we all have different ways of learning, so too do our bodies. And the body does need to learn good usage, it cannot be imposed. So one option is to explore these different systems to see which one you connect to best, which one achieves the greatest shifts for you and which one leaves you walking away feeling longer, lighter, more expansive and relaxed.

This option of course involves time and money. So let’s also look at ways to improve that are free! Firstly – are you a visual learner? If so, when was the last time you looked at an image of the human spine? It isn’t straight at all but curved, for good reasons, to allow shock absorption with impacts great or small, flexibility and ease of movement. The bones of the skeleton, such as the collar bone, pelvis and femur, allow for the weight of the arms to distribute evenly across the torso, and for the weight of the torso to drop down through the hips and legs to root you into the ground. Having a clear image of the skeleton – the body’s primary support system – can be a very useful first step to improving posture. The stronger an image you have of the skeleton – the stronger images of relaxation can be: such as imagining your muscles hanging off the skeleton like a coat on a hanger, thereby helping you to drop in and respond to such images throughout your day.

On a more practical note – assessing your desk and working environment is also important. Does your chair have adequate support? If not, you have every right in the work place to request one that does. When you are sitting in the chair, what height is it? Your knees ideally should form a 90′ angle between your hips and the floor, with your hips no lower than the height of your knees. For many, alternating the chair height between this position and having your hips slightly higher than knee height is helpful in keeping lower back muscles relaxed and lengthened.

A Postural Exercise

It requires your imagination. Having the image of your spine in your mind (or even an actual image on your desk) will help. Start by making sure you can feel your sit bones (the base of your pelvis) pressing into the chair. From there, imagine your skull resting on top of your spine – the joint where the skull and the spine meet is approximately midway between your ears, much higher than most people think. So imagine that there is an air bubble in that joint which allows the skull to float like a helium balloon up and away from the top of the spine. Because it is still attached to the spine however, eventually as it floats up, it will start to carry the spine along with it, so that air begins to fill each joint along the spine – providing a buoyant cushion between each vertebra (24 total) from your head to your sacrum. Meanwhile allow your shoulders to relax across your chest so that the muscles just melt off your collar bone and ribs, creating space and width along both the front and back of the chest. Little air bubbles can fill the joints of the arms from the shoulder down to the elbows, wrists and tips of your fingers. Meanwhile, as your head, neck and spine are floating up, imagine a small weight hanging off your tailbone that allows you to find length along your lower back as you release further into the chair through your sit bones.

Alternately, this exercise can be done standing, in which case the base of the spine can release in the opposite direction to the skull. Air bubbles can fill the joints of the legs and hips, allowing the pelvis to float slightly off the legs as the leg bones release down into the ground, buoyed by little cushions of air at the knees, ankles and feet. The leg muscles melt off the bones and allow your weight to drop down into the earth…Now your spine is supporting you.

Last but not least, let’s look at the computer. Does your screen sit at the height of your eyes when they are gazing straight forward ( at the natural height achieved once you’ve gone through the above exercise and found more length in your spine as you sit)? If not, you will always end up slumping, no matter how hard you try, because your gaze will pull your body down with it. This will lead to shoulder, neck and jaw tension and compression in the lower back. If you cannot find a screen that is the right height, try propping telephone directories under the screen to raise it – any thick book will do.

And yes, as you explore these options, you may find that new muscles start to engage that previously were inactive, so if there is some shifting and more working of new muscles, that is a good thing. As long as you give yourself breaks and allow yourself to go back to the habitual way whenever you need a rest, so that you don’t strain muscles in the process.

What’s most important is to gain awareness of the habits you want to adapt, and to experience these new places physically, at the same time as you come to identify the habitual patterns you are trying to let go of. Let your mind and skeleton do the majority of the work for you as your muscles enjoy the journey!

What do you do in your life to find Inspiration?  To stimulate your mind and emotions, to fill your lungs with air, and yes, even to experience the sacred, whatever that may mean for you?  However you approach the idea of inspiration, it is undeniable that we require inspiration to live, be healthy and thrive.  We require fresh air, mental and emotional invigoration, and some sense of reverence or awe for the world around us. Children have it – they experience inspiration every day on so many levels (and what is the first thing they do when it happens?…drop their jaws and gasp for air) - they are sources of inspiration unto themselves.

But we get older, life gets busier and the world spins faster.  It is still possible however to maintain that sense of wonder.  A smidge of inspiration a day can keep the doctor away.  To go too long without invites fatigue, depressed spirits, higher stress levels and increased incidence of colds and flus.  This malaise can eventually become habitual and lead to depression, anxiety and withdrawal. But when we take the time to breathe – physically and psychologically – to give ourselves space for repose, it can add vigour to our days and vitality to our spirits.  So how do we find it?

Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way, recommends a weekly “date” with oneself (by oneself) – an hour or so that we devote each week to entertaining our sense of whimsy, imagination and play.  What would you most love to do if you could drop everything and skive off work or your normal routine for an hour (a cheeky pint doesn’t count!) without anyone being the wiser?  Sneak into a movie (and buy that gummy candy you used to love when you were five)?  Browse a used bookshop for hidden treasures?  Go for an ice cream?  Visit Hamley’s and actually play some of the games at the stalls?  Kick a football in the park?  Walk along Regents Canal and feed the swans?  Or maybe just curl up in bed and read a book on a topic you know nothing about – Quantum Physics, Poker, Gardening, Travel Books on faraway places.  By the end of that cheeky hour, you will remember what it was like to see with the eyes of a child, to experience wonder and revel in it.  You’ll feel like a noble truant for good reason.   You will have fed your soul a healthy dose of inspiration.  I invite you to explore this exercise, especially now that the days grow longer and the sun graces us with glimpses of Spring.

To start you off, here are a few of my favourite literary sources of inspiration (I’ve linked them each to Amazon for those who wish to take the plunge).  Find your favourite local coffee shop, a park bench, garden or terrace, pour a cup of your favourite warm drink and curl up to the inspirational journeys these offer:

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living by HH Dalai Lama & Howard C. Cutler

Perfect Health by Deepak Chopra M.D.

A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living by Joseph Campbell and Diane K. Osbon (Editor)

My Grandfather’s Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Letters on Life by Rainer Maria Rilke and Ulrich Baer (Translator, Editor)

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach

Poem for the Day, One by Nicholas Albery and Peter Ratcliffe (Editors)

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

A Hedonist’s Guide to… Travel Series (pick a city you’ve always wanted to visit!)

It takes just an hour a week.  Let May be the month to find your Muse!

Echinacea

Echinacea is a herbal remedy and gives a natural boost to the immune system. If you follow a regular regimen of taking a daily recommended dose of echinacea for a period of 10 days at a time (more than two weeks reduces the effectiveness), you can often fight off a cold before it gets the best of you. It is important that you do so as a preventative measure or at the first sign of a cold coming on – once you have the cold, the echinacea won’t be as effective because your immune system is already compromised. Echinacea is not recommended for use in pregnancy or with children 12 and under.

Ginger

Ginger, like echinacea, gives a helpful boost to the immune system, so be sure to include plenty of it in your regular diet. If you do end up succumbing to a cold or flu, ginger is a helpful remedy for congestion in the lungs, fending off fevers and relieving headaches caused by blocked sinuses. It can also help ease nausea (recommended for morning sickness as well) and encourage the body to produce heat and alleviate chills. Add a few drops of ginger essential oil to a tablespoon of massage oil and rub into the chest to alleviate lung congestion or around the sinuses to ease sinus headaches. Alternately, slice up some fresh ginger, add it to a cup of boiling water and allow to steep for a few minutes. Ginger tea will help warm the body, boost immunity and reduce congestion. Cooking with ginger is also a great way to strengthen your immune system on a regular basis to fend off a cold before it strikes.

Reduce Dairy

While dairy is a great source of calcium, vitamins and protein when we are healthy, when we’re ill, it does inhibit the immune system and cause increased production of mucus, resulting in increased congestion, runny noses, headaches (from mucus building up in sinus cavities), coughs (increased phlegm in chest) and sore throats (mucus clinging to the back of the throat, as well as the wear and tear of excessive coughing to try to remove it). If you have a cold, reduce your dairy intake (milk, cheese, yoghurts etc) until you are feeling well again.

Reduce Alcohol

As much as you might crave that glass of wine or beer at dinner, alcohol also inhibits the immune system, making it more difficult for your body to fend off germs and recover from illness. If you have a cold, best to abstain until you are well again. That said, many people find the age-old practice of a “Hot Totty” effective before bedtime: Herbal or Decaf Tea, Lemon, and a nip of Whiskey will help clear congestion and make you drowsy for a good night’s sleep…but make sure it’s only a nip!

Salt Water Gargle

Take a teaspoon of table salt and dissolve it in a cup of warm water. Gargle a mouthful at a time for several seconds (and spit out) until you get through the whole cup. Five minutes of gargling will help reduce swelling at the back of the throat. It’s not dissimilar to taking a warm salt bath after an intensive work out – it helps ease muscle inflammation, which is essentially what is occurring at the back of your throat from excessive coughing and mucus buildup. Salt is also a natural disinfectant, so it will help to combat any bacteria at the back of the throat to ease soreness.

A Good Night’s Sleep

If you are not sleeping well as a result of your cold, consider a night-time sleep aid. If night-time cold medicine doesn’t appeal to you, try a natural herbal supplement such as Valerina to help relax you for sleep. Sleep is the best time for the body to repair itself – if you don’t give your body enough of it, the cold will linger on.

Your GP or Homeopath

If your cold has lasted more than two-three weeks, it’s time to visit the GP or a Homeopath. You might have a bacterial infection that antibiotics will combat more quickly in ways that natural remedies can’t. Alternately, an effective homeopathy treatment can often help your body build the necessary antibodies to fend off the bug.

Children are primarily kinesthetic learners until the age of 12. A study conducted by the Touch Research Institute in Miami shows that when pre-schoolers were given 15 minutes of massage before taking the same aptitude tests as a group of students who weren’t massaged, the pre-schoolers who received massage scored significantly higher on all tests. Studies also show that children absorb 15% of verbal praise, but 85% of praise that is given in conjunction with touch. Thus nurturing touch is a wonderful way to enhance cognitive development and help children build self-esteem in early life.

Adopting some form of nurturing touch or massage throughout a child’s development is beneficial to the well-being of parents as well. When giving a massage, both the giver and receiver release the “feel-good” hormone oxytocin, which reduces blood pressure, inhibits the production of stress hormones and creates a feeling of calm and relaxation. A daily 15-20 minute ritual of giving a massage to one’s child can help to reduce stress levels for parents at home and alleviate the afternoon or evening “fussiness” children often experience, allowing for a more harmonic environment in general.

Massage can be taught to children in conjunction with imagination games: “making a pizza” in conjunction with strokes on the tummy to soothe tummy ache, or “making a garden” on the child’s back to engage their imagination and provide comforting strokes to calm before bedtime. Parents can teach children massage strokes which they can then apply to younger siblings to create a strong bond between children and ease sibling rivalry. Likewise, you might soon find children offering to give Mum and Dad massages which will allow you to reap the benefits of positive touch in return from your children.

Massage at home creates an atmosphere of nurturing that can extend to all members of a family to create lasting bonds and a lifetime of health and well-being.

What do you do in the thirty minutes before you go to bed?  Perhaps the number one response would be watching television, among others such as finishing work, checking emails, paying bills, sorting or cleaning.  Watching television is often a way to “shut the mind off,” however it does provide a lot of stimulation to the senses and can contribute to restlessness and mental fatigue.  If you find you have difficulty getting to sleep or that your mind won’t stop spinning, try exploring a new end-of-day routine.  For that last half hour before bed, try switching off the telly and computer and switching on some calming music…or just savour some silence.   To accompany this quiet time, enjoy:

• Reading a good book for 20 minutes.

• A cup of chamomile tea which has a naturally sedating effect on the nervous system and enhances relaxation in the muscles.  If drinking fluids too late at night leads to waking up in the middle of the night for the toilet, try having the chamomile when you get home as a way of letting the work day go and relaxing into your evening.

• A glass of warm milk.  Milk’s plentiful store of the amino acid tryptophan helps to boost the brain’s production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps you sleep. Milk contains about 112 milligrams of tryptophan per eight-ounce glass (regardless of skim or full fat).  Because carbohydrates also increase serotonin production – which is why you may feel sleepy after a big plate of pasta – the carbs in milk also help you to drift off.

• Spray lavender onto your pillow, or rest the eyes with a lavender eye pillow.  We carry a great deal of tension around the eyes which is directly related to our mental activity.  Eye pillows help to release this tension, relax the face, and calm the mind (most Body Shops carry them).  They can also help to ease headaches.

• Meditation. This can be as simple as sitting cross-legged or upright in a chair and resting the hands on the thighs while you focus on expanding your breath.  Palms should face up if you wish to release pent up energy or receive calm from your environment, or they can face down if you wish to centre and gather your energy which has been dispersed throughout the day.  Breathe deeply from your abdomen, lengthening your breath with each exhale.  If sounds in your environment seem distracting, allow them to be a kind of soft focus for the meditation so that the sounds gently filter through your mind with equal weight - whether it’s the hum of the refridgerator or the blare of a car alarm.  Alternately, you can focus on a single positive thought or word of intent.  Or you might prefer to simply focus on your breath and allow thoughts to drift in and out as they will.  The point of focus is not as important as the willingness to sit calmly in relative stillness and silence for 5, 10, 15 minutes, whatever length you can afford, and allow the mind and body to unwind.  It might seem that the mind is actually more active while meditating, but in fact you are just providing the necessary space to process these thoughts and hopefully allow each one to fall away as a result.  Explore which techniques work best for you.  Any amount of time you can spend will improve the quality of your sleep immensely.

• Foot massage. Based on the principles of reflexology, the feet allow us immediate access to the entire body.  A foot massage, even for just 5 minutes, can produce overall relaxation and restore equilibrium to the body after a hectic day.  Explore in particular a point on the middle of the sole, just below the ball of the foot, which corresponds to an acupressure point along the kidney meridian and has a particularly calming effect.  Persuade your partner to trade foot massages with you, it’s a nice way to reconnect at the end of your day.  Or include a foot massage on yourself at the end of a brief meditation exercise to calm the mind and body alike.

• Other helpful tips inlude a regular sleep schedule, creating a relaxing bedroom environment, and avoiding caffeine or heavy meals and excessive alcohol close to bedtime.

Explore which techniques work best for you, your environment and your lifestyle.  Those thirty minutes before bedtime will produce more restful nights and energetic days and contribute to your overall wellbeing.

Perhaps you don’t exercise enough and you have decided now is the time to change this.  Great.  How?  Start with the everyday.  What could you change in your everyday life that will immediately increase your exercise level without taking up more time in your schedule?

• Take the stairs in the tube, not the escalator.   At the height of rush hour, you often move faster than the escalator queues anyway.
• Walk up the stairs at work – if you work on the 20th floor of a building, try taking the stairs 3 flights up and then switch to the elevator.  Build up the number of flights gradually, at a level that you can sustain.
• What about those five minutes waiting for the kettle to boil for the office tea break? You could incorporate a stretch during that time that will help ease muscle strain and tightness.
• Perhaps you want to try a new class but don’t know which one.  Many yoga and fitness centres offer taster classes that you can try once for minimal to no cost, often on your lunch hour.  Perhaps for the next month you could take a local fitness tour once a week to a different location and try a class, see what you enjoy - what you can sustain and commit to.  Start small and build.  It’s easier to make lasting life changes gradually, and ultimately a healthier way for the body to adjust.

Perhaps you want to drop weight and of course, they all say to cut out carbs and fat from your diet.  But the body needs both to sustain and repair itself.  Without these elements in your diet, you can become lethargic, suffer from depression and be more prone to injury and illness.  What’s more, when you eventually start to surrender to the cravings and go on a “bender”, you will end up gaining more weight than you initially lost, because your body has gone into starvation mode and will immediately store anything you eat in the event of future deprivations: the yo-yo effect.  So try a little balance…

• Start with breakfast.  If you don’t eat breakfast, please reconsider.  By having a wholesome breakfast, you stimulate your metabolism early in the day and burn calories at a higher rate throughout.  Protein and whole grains, particularly in the morning, are the best way to stave off hunger later in the day.  This could include porridge (an exceptionally good source of vitamins, protein and fibre), whole grain cereals and toast (crack an egg and add a little water into a saucer and pop in the microwave while toast is browning to add some poached protein on top).
• Try a salad at lunch, or soup for these cold winter days.   A small wholegrain roll to accompany will curb the appetite longer and perhaps prevent you from having an excessive portion at dinner.
• And yes, try to reduce your supper portion…even one serving spoonful less could help a great deal in eating the amount that you need, rather than the amount you’re accustomed to.  Remember – it takes the body twenty minutes to register that you’re full, so eat slowly, let each mouthful be a signal to relax and take your time, and stop before you feel full.
• If you have a sweet tooth, don’t cut out desserts altogether.  Just adjust your choices, your portions and perhaps the time of day you indulge.  Dessert at lunchtime will be more readily burned off than dessert at dinner.  For ingredients, good quality dark chocolate is full of anti-oxidants and low on sugar.  Melt over fresh fruit in the oven for 10 minutes.  Or try fresh fruit or fruit compotes with a small portion of custard which is naturally lower in fat than ice cream, or yoghurt which is full of healthy probiotics to assist and regulate digestion.  Or perhaps a small portion of quality cheese for calcium and protein with dried fruits, high in vitamins and minerals.  The possibilities are endless and you don’t have to skimp on flavour to enjoy a proper meal.  Indulge on quality, economise on quantity… moderation moderation moderation.

Lastly, no small change, adjustment or sacrifice should go unrewarded.  Always reward yourself when you effect change for the good.  Not only does it help you to incorporate lifestyle adjustments, it is good for you - especially if the reward involves some form of relaxation.  Stress is the leading cause of poor health, and the more forms of relaxation and recuperation we can afford ourselves, the healthier we’ll be.  Whether it’s a massage, a movie, or twenty minutes at lunch in your favourite bookshop, allow yourself opportunities to unwind and regroup…it will provide motivation to maintain a high standard of self-care and vitality for yourself and those you love.

May your 2010 be filled with renewed health and sustained wellbeing!

Queen’s Park Massage wishes you a joyful holiday season and healthy, happy new year!

In general the good fats are considered to be polyunsaturated (includes Omega 3s) and monounsaturated fats, which tend to lower bad cholesterol in the blood – LDL, or low density lipoproteins, and increase the good cholesteral in the blood – HDL, or high density lipoproteins.  In contrast, saturated fats and trans fats are considered unhealthy because they increase the level of LDL in the blood and reduce the amount of HDL in the blood.  Therefore it is best to avoid oils that contain saturated and trans fats, and beneficial to use oils that contain higher levels of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats.

Healthier Cooking Oils

Olive Oil is a wonderful oil to use for cooking and salads as it contains a great deal of monounsaturated fats and Omega 9s (without upsetting the critical ratio between Omega 3s and 6s which the body needs).  All types of olive oil provide monounsaturated fat, but “extra-virgin” or “virgin” olive oils are the least processed forms.  As a result, they contain the highest levels of polyphenols, a powerful antioxidant.  There has been some speculation that when used at high temperatures, the fats within olive oil begin to break down and form trans fats, but these theories are generally considered invalid.

Sunflower Oil is a wonderful oil to use for frying as it is still light in nature and contains high levels of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and low levels of saturated and trans fats.  It also supplies more Vitamin E than any other vegetable oil.

Sesame Oil is considered in Chinese medicine to be a blood builder, a kidney and liver tonic, and a bowel protector and regulator.  Low in saturated fats, it is also rich in phytic acid, the antioxidant that may prevent cancer. Lignan sesamin, one variety of sesame oil, appears to radically reduce cholesterol levels in the bloodstream and liver.  Sesame oil is generally not intended for cooking, but rather as a flavour enhancer to recipes when added raw.

Other healthy oils include Canola Oil, Peanut Oil, Flaxseed and Linseed Oils (the latter two being particularly high in Omega 3s).

Fats/Oils to Avoid

Margarine, Palm Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, and Vegetable Shortening. Any fat that comes in solid form usually contains high amounts of hydrogenated oils or saturated fats, and therefore best to avoid, or at least use in small quantities.  Certainly, we don’t want to avoid good taste all together, but there are ways to add taste creatively without overdoing it on quantity.  For buttering corn cobs or steamed vegetables for instance, add butter to the boiling or steaming water so that a thin layer of butter coats the vegetables without creating excess.

Explore which oils work best for you, as they each add unique benefits and flavours to your diet!

Stress

While it is the most obvious cause, stress is often something we assume we can do nothing about in light of the life circumstances that we face.  For many, stress arises from increased work demands, challenging social and family situations, or financial strain.  Whatever the circumstances may be, the effectiveness of our coping mechanisms can drastically affect the level of stress, and frequency of headache, that ensues.

For many, instinctive responses to stress include clenching the jaw and holding the breath, which creates shallower breathing overall.  Less oxygen flow within the body can diminish the body’s ability to eliminate toxins, leading to greater buildup of lactic acid in muscles.  The masseter muscles around the jaw bone are some of the strongest in the body, and can refer tension and strain to muscles and connective tissue around the shoulders, neck, and the entire skull area, causing terrible headaches that seem to linger for days.

A few ways to reduce jaw tension:

If you clench your jaw during the day, you most likely do so at night as well.  Consult your dentist in regard to wearing a night guard.  These small plastic devices are specifically fitted to your bite (the dentist will take impressions of your upper and lower teeth) and can be worn at night to absorb the tension from your clenched jaw.  The night guard prevents a circuit of tension building along the jaw line and into the shoulders, neck and skull.  If you find that your headache is running up the back of the neck and head, around the temples and jaw area, then this could be an effective remedy to explore.

Head Massage

Whether you receive one professionally or just enlist the help of a loved one to work the scalp, neck and shoulders, head massage is a wonderful method to reduce headache and strain to the affected areas.  Even if you just take a few minutes a few times a day at work to give yourself a rigorous rub of the scalp and jaw area, you will find your breath immediately drops in more deeply and increased relaxation results thereafter.

Aromatherapy Oils

Certain aromatherapy oils can have wonderful therapeutic effects on throbbing heads. Find a combination that works for you, or just choose one.  Add 4-6 drops to about 2 teaspoons of base oil (any vegetable based oil like sunflower or almond) and massage into the temples, jaw and scalp.  You could also add a few drops to water in an essential oil burner.  When the vapour is inhaled, the essential oil molecules are absorbed in the hundreds of microscopic hair/cilia that line the nasal cavities and stimulate the nervous system accordingly.  Oils can be ordered from reliable sources like Neal’s Yard or Naturally Thinking.  The following essential oils are particularly effective:

Melissa is very good for migraines and stress headaches, especially when they
are coupled with shoulder and neck tension.  It also helps with anxiety, depression and mental fatigue.

Lavender is particularly helpful for those headaches associated with insomnia and neuralgia.

Marjoram is good for stress-related migraines, especially those related to high blood pressure and PMT.

Dehydration

While we know this to be true, we often don’t realise when we are dehydrated, particularly during periods of stress when we are moving so fast we don’t have time to notice.  When you feel a headache coming on, first thing to do is drink 2-3 large glasses of water.  The lining of the skull is a very thin sheath of connective tissue which when dehydrated can begin to shrink and pull away from the bones of the skull (this is usually what is happening with a hangover headache).  Water will immediately help restore the natural balance of fluid to this area.

Chocolate

Many headaches arise from caffeine withdrawal.  If you are struggling to reduce your caffeine intake, there are ways to still receive smaller and healthier forms of caffeine in sources such as green tea and dark chocolate, thereby helping you to wean yourself gradually and curb some of the headache symptoms that occur naturally during this process.  For women in pregnancy, dark chocolate has also recently been shown to help prevent pre-eclampsia and high-blood pressure, so doubly beneficial!  The benefits are received with moderate doses of 50-100g of dark chocolate/day.

If you suffer from frequent migraines, however, caffeine in any form (unless pregnant) can help to prevent the onset of a migraine, relieve symptoms and shorten the duration altogether.

Breathe

When stressed, the body’s nervous system essentially switches into fight-or-flight mode, whereby digestion shuts down and becomes sluggish, heart rate increases and breathing becomes shallower.  The best remedy is deep breathing practices such as meditation, yoga, or cardiovascular exercise.  Meditation before bedtime can help improve sleep, which when compromised can be one of the leading causes of chronic headache.  Yoga practices such as pranayama, which in most yoga classes is usually incorporated in some form, can also help to extend and deepen the breath, returning the body and nervous system to “parasympathetic” mode, thereby stimulating digestion, reducing blood pressure and increasing oxygen throughout the body.

Explore different combinations of these various methods, and hopefully you will find a permanent solution to help you find headache relief and rejuvenation for mind and body!