Best Way to Relieve Your Headaches with Self-Massage, Aromatherapy, and Acupressure

Self-massage

Massaging your head, neck, forehead and temples not only feels good, but helps the muscles relax and encourages the flow of blood to the head. Try any of the following:

•  Place your hands, outstretched, around the front, sides and top of your head and massage the head by rotating first your thumbs and fingertips in small circles so that the skin is moved over the scalp, then using the palms of your hands in a similar way.

•  Using the fingertips as if you were washing your hair, massage the whole of the scalp using small circular movements.
•  Run your fingernails like a comb through your hair from front to back, and from the top of your head down to the sides, in long, sweeping movements.

Aromatherapy

Particularly good oils for headaches are lavender and chamomile, both of which are calming as well as being natural painkillers, and peppermint, another very effective painkiller which helps relax the muscles. Use on their own or combine lavender with either peppermint or chamomile in equal quantities and:

•  put a few drops on a handkerchief or tissue and inhale
•  blend a couple of drops with a teaspoon of a carrier oil, such as almond or grapeseed, and rub into your temples
•  add six to eight drops to a hot bath as you run the water in, and relax in a soothing aromatic bath for ten minutes.

Acupressure

Similar to massage, acupressure uses thumb and finger pressure at key points of the body to release tension and promote self-healing. Try the following, applying pressure for at least a minute, and preferably three:

•  Using the forefinger or middle finger of each hand, press firmly into the hollows on either side of the two vertical neck muscles at the base of the skull. Then with a circular motion of your fingers begin to massage the sides of your neck from that point downwards to the shoulders.
• Holding the thumb and index finger of the one hand fairly close together, press the flesh between them with the thumb and index finger of other hand, at the point just above the muscle.
• Using your thumb, firmly press the point midway between the eyebrows, where the bridge of the nose meets the forehead