Do you suffer from headaches quite often? Is work pressure giving you headaches lately? Do you know that there are amazing home remedies for headache? Headaches are something that is very common in individuals, which can result from multiple factors. You can get headaches due to excessive workload, or sometimes a simple cold can give you headaches.
However, you can easily try out some of the home remedies for headache rather than going for strong medications. When you visit a doctor for a mild headache, he will often suggest a paracetamol or some analgesics. If you are allergic to analgesics or paracetamols, what other options do you have? Would should you go for steroidal drugs just for the sake of treating a simple headache?
For a mild or even serious headache, you can cure it at home itself. There are excellent home remedies for headache that can give you relief and comfort just like any medicine. The best part of trying home remedies for headache is that you can wipe out minimal side effects of medications.
Since experiencing headaches is an extremely common health condition, you have to fight it almost every day. What would you prefer the most in such scenarios- medicines or home remedies for headache? It is quite natural that you will first go for remedies for headache over any strong medications.
If you wish to try home remedies for headache, read this article and know every bit of treating headaches naturally.
Table of Contents
What are the different categories of headaches?
How many kinds of headaches have you come across till date? Did you know that there are more than 150 distinct categories of headaches?
In this article, you will come to know about some of the most common forms of headaches. You might have already experienced these headaches or may experience at least once in your life. Remember that you can try out different home remedies for headache, be it of any type.
1. Tension related to headaches
Getting headaches because of tension or acute anxiety is one of the most prominent forms of headaches. Mostly teenagers and adults experience tension headaches due to either immense work or peer pressure. Such headaches can cause moderate pain, which tends to fluctuate with time. Tension headaches do not have any severe symptoms, as they will go away once you stop taking stress.
2. Cluster headaches
One of the most severe forms of headaches is cluster headache. You experience symptoms like intense pain resembling burning or piercing back and surrounding your orbital sockets. The pain can be constant or imitating throbbing around one of your eyes. Cluster headaches give you such unbearable pain that you feel difficulty in even sitting calmly in one position. Usually, such intense pain speeds up when you are having an anxiety attack.
What exactly happens during extreme cluster headache? You experience symptoms like wilting of the eyelid, constriction of your pupils, redness of eyes, and excessive tears production. Why do you call it cluster headaches? Such a type of headaches occurs in clusters or groups.
A cluster period is a time of experiencing cluster headaches, which usually lasts between two weeks and three months. You may come across cluster headaches at least once or thrice per day, each lasting for around fifteen minutes. Sometimes one cluster headache may prolong for more than 3 hours within a specific cluster period. Home remedies for headaches like cluster headache can be very helpful to give you relief from intense pain.
3. Posttraumatic headaches
If you have come across a head injury, it is possible for you to experience posttraumatic headaches. Usually, the onset of posttraumatic headaches is two or three days after the head trauma. Possible symptoms include-
- Difficulty in concentrating
- Vertigo
- Monotonous pain that keeps worsening with time
- The problem in remembering things
- Irritability
- Lightheadedness
- Getting tired quickly
What are chronic headaches?
When you experience headaches on a daily basis for a persistent period, it falls under the class of chronic headaches. Usually, you will experience chronic headaches for more than 15 days, which can extend to as long as three months. Depending on your tolerance level, chronic headaches may disappear within a shorter time span. A basic chronic headache usually persists beyond four hours. Chronic headaches can be a result of some primary kinds of headaches such as-
- New daily persistent headache or NDPH
- Chronic migraine
- Hemicrania continua
- Tension headache in the chronic stage
What are NDPH and hemicrania continua?
NDPH or New daily persistent headache
A very sudden type of headache that can come over one day, and then continue for more than three months. You are most likely to recall the day of the onset of new daily persistent headache quite clearly. Doctors are not very sure as to why NDPH occurs so suddenly and persists for a prolonged period. If you have a new daily persistent headache, it can be due to the following reasons-
- A series of events resulting in extreme stress or tension
- Illnesses imitating the signs of flu
- Recent surgery of any kind
- Any kind of pathogenic infection
You usually experience mild pain in the case of NDPH, but sometimes the pain can be unbearable. The treatment for NDPH with medicines is a bit complicated. Thus, it is better if you can stick to home remedies for headaches for temporary relief. The range of possible signs of NDPH differs extensively from individual to individual. You may often share migraine-like symptoms such as sensitivity towards light or nauseous feelings if you have NDPH.
Hemicrania continua
It is a rare form of headache, which persists in the chronic stage giving you continuous headaches. The unique feature of this headache is that it causes pain only on one side of your head and face. There are two kinds of hemicrania continua-
- Chronic type: continuous daily headaches
- Remitting type: recurrence of headaches after experiencing hemicrania continua for six months. Usually, the period of recurrence happens within a week or month after the condition has dissolved.
Other possible signs of hemicrania continua include-
- Consistent pain that keeps fluctuating between mild and severe
- Feeling of stuffiness in your nose sometimes may be runny
- Contraction of the iris
- Drooping eyelids
- Redness of eyes often accompanied with heavy tears
Hemicrania continua worsen with daily physical activities and habits like consumption of alcohol. If you have hemicrania continua, you will mostly respond to medicines like indomethacin.
How are migraine and sinus headaches different?
Migraine headaches
When you come across migraine headaches, you often feel excessive pain indicating a severe condition. The type of pain for migraine headaches related to a sense of throbbing or pounding effect on your head. Migraine headaches usually last for four hours, but can easily extend to three days depending on your pain severity. Sometimes you may experience migraine headaches for more than four times in one month. There are some common symptoms of having migraine headaches such as:
- Increased sensitivity towards light, smell or noise
- Feeling nauseous very often
- Losing the urge to eat properly, reflecting negatively on your appetite
- Experiencing extreme pain in your stomach or abdomen
The symptoms of migraine in children differ a little from adults. Children may experience signs of dizziness, having blurry visions, pale skin, stomach upset, and fever. Sometimes certain symptoms like constant vomiting and digestive problems in your child can continue over a month.
Sinus headaches
You may often get confused between migraine and sinus-related headaches. However, both are very different from one another. Sinus headaches make you experience intense pain in your sinuses or void areas of your facial region. The pain mostly encompasses areas of your forehead, nasal bridge, and cheekbones.
In case of sinus headaches, the sinuses or cavities of your face swell up that maybe cause of a sinus infection. If you have a sinus infection, prominent signs will include greenish or yellowish gunk coming out of your nasal passage. It is not like a clear muck as in the case of a migraine or cluster headache. Sinus infection is the major reason behind the true form of sinus headache.
Possible symptoms of sinus headaches are-
- Inflammation of nose, cheekbones and forehead areas
- Blockage of nose due to continuous heavy discharge of dirty mucus
- Having a sense of fullness in your ears
- Prevalent fever
Basic home remedies for a headache
Here is the list of best remedies that you can try at home and reduce headache:
1. Drinking sufficient amount of water
Keeping yourself hydrated always can bring about significant positive changes in your body. Not just headaches, optimum hydration of body can cure many other health conditions and help you maintain a healthy life. When you suffer from insufficient hydration, it can result in headaches.
Several studies have proved that chronic dehydration is the main devil behind the development of migraines and other headaches. If you drink sufficient water throughout the day, it can notably reduce headaches within half an hour. To shun dehydration, drink enough water and eat fruits and vegetables that have high water content.
2. Improve your sleeping cycles
Sleeping properly at regular intervals can drastically reduce headaches. You usually get headaches when you are in acute stress, or when your brain is overactive. If you are have history of insomnia, the chances of experiencing headaches increases even more. When you sleep deprived, it can result in multiple detrimental health conditions.
Sleeping for not more than 6 hours in a day can cause serious headaches and several other complications. If you are looking for home remedies for headache, sleep at least sleeping for 6 hours per day. Remember not to extend your sleeping period beyond 9 hours.
3. Use a cold compress
When you are having headaches, a simple cold compress can be extremely beneficial. Applying ice pack or cold compress around the neck region and behind your head can lessen headaches. Cold compress alleviates signs of inflammation in the neck region, narrows your blood vessels, and decelerates nerve transmission.
To prepare a cold compress at home, you use an ice-cold towel or use a waterproof bag containing ice cubes.
4. Restrict consuming alcohol
You may have this idea that alcohol can evade your daily tensions and anxiety attacks, but you are wrong. Alcohol can give rise to cluster headaches, and even trigger migraines. Being a vasodilator, alcohol widens your blood vessels instead of constricting them allowing the heavy flow of blood.
Vasodilation is one of the evident causes of headaches. When you take medicines for controlling blood pressure, one common side effect is a headache as such medicines contain vasodilators.
Alcohol can even act as a diuretic, triggering your body to get rid of electrolytes and fluids by recurrent urination. Excessive urination can lead to dehydration, which in turn can cause headaches.
How does magnesium and vitamin B treat headaches?
Apart from taking strong medicines, there are some easy home remedies for headache offering negligible to zero side effects.
Did you know that magnesium accounts for one of the key minerals with limitless functionalities in your body? The optimum amount of magnesium in your body can distinctly improve the transmission of nerve impulses and control your blood glucose level.
Interestingly, magnesium can radically aid in combating headaches in quite a safe way. Many studies show that if you have a lesser percentage of magnesium in the body, you are more likely to experience headaches. To reduce migraine headaches, you should have at least 600 milligrams of magnesium every day. There are options of either consuming oral capsules of magnesium citrate or foods that are rich in magnesium.
Can essential oils soothe headaches?
Aromatherapy is one of the excellent home remedies for a headache that can easily evade all your tensions. Essential oils are full of chemical compounds that are aromatic in nature, blessing you with countless therapeutic benefits.
To relieve headaches, you can try aromatherapy out of lavender and peppermint essential oils. Lavender oil has amazing benefits against migraines and cluster headaches.
Combining essential oils with vitamin B complexes can be a cherry on the top. You may mix vitamin B capsules with aromatic oils, or eat foods rich in the B complexes for added benefits.