Curing Hiccups And Headaches At Home With Actual Science

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Hiccups are an annoying evolutionary left-over, and home remedies can range from the useless to the dangerous. However, a simple breathing exercise is your best bet, short of anti-convulsive medications.

• Headaches can range from the annoying to the debilitating, but there’s “one quick trick” that can cure most common headaches in seconds.

• See today’s main feature, for explanations on both of these!

• Physical and mental wellness are inextricably linked; it’s very difficult to have one without the other

  • Today’s sponsor Maude are offering 10almonds subscribers a discount on their product line to take care of both at once

Read on to learn about these things and more…

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😣 MAIN FEATURE

Quick fixes for bodily annoyances

Do you ever find yourself desperately trying to cure hiccups, and advice on the Internet is like “breathe in through your ears while drinking vinegar upside-down through your nose”?

If so, you’re not alone. So, today we’re going to look at some science-based approaches to dealing with common bodily annoyances.

Hiccups

Unfortunately, most popular advices simply don’t work, and the only near-guaranteed way to cure these is with anti-convulsive medications whose side-effects may be worse than the hiccups.

However, before you head to the pharmacy, there is one breathing exercise that has a very simple scientific underpinning: 4:4 breathing. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s just:

1. Breathe slowly in through your nose to a count of four

2. Hold your breath for a count of four

3. Breathe slowly out through your nose to a count of four

4. Hold your breath for a count of four

…and repeat. The slower the better. At first, your hiccups will interrupt this, but just “keep calm and carry on”.

The reason this can work is that breathing is an autonomic function (e.g., it happens without us thinking about it) that, unlike most other autonomic functions, we can all control directly. By taking control of one, others will tend to fall into line with it.

For example, it is normal that your heart rate will tend to slow or quicken as your breathing slows or quickens, respectively.

Your hiccups? Autonomic function. Actually a very, very old evolutionary left-over trait, that’s only useful for protecting lungs while breathing underwater. In other words, it’s the bodily function thinks you’re a fish (or a tadpole-like amphibious creature) in the process of developing lungs. Unfortunately, because hiccuping doesn’t harm our chances of passing on our genes, it never got naturally de-selected so we still have it.

Anyway, the bottom line is: take control of your breathing in the aspects you can directly control, and the aspects you can’t directly control will fall into line. You may need to give it some minutes, don’t give up too quickly.

Headaches

If you ever get a headache and you don’t have painkillers or perhaps they’re not helping or you have another reason for not wanting to take them, there’s “one quick trick” that can cure most headaches in seconds.

First, the limitation: this will only cure headaches that have been caused by increased localized blood pressure in the forehead. However, that’s more than half of most common headaches.

Next, how it works…

We’re mentioning this first, because understanding how it works will give you more confidence in using it.

Your body has a wonderful homeostatic system, which is the system by which your body maintains its “Goldilocks zones” of not too hot or cold, not to acidine or alkaline, not too hydrated or dehydrated, blood pressure not too high or too low, etc. Sometimes, however, it can get confused, and needs a nudge back to where it should be.

One of the ways it maintains blood pressure is biofeedback from receptors in blood vessel walls, called baroreceptors. They are what it sounds like; they measure blood pressure internally.

In certain places, there are clusters of baroreceptors in one place. And if we press on that one place, the body will think “Oh no! Super high blood pressure in this bit!” and reduce the blood pressure immediately.

This is called the baroreflex, and that’s what you need to cure a hypertensive headache.

So, what to do:

With your thumb, carefully feel the upper inside corner of your eye socket. So, at the top, and about ¼ of the way out from the bridge of your nose. You should feel a groove. No, not like the Emperor’s New, but, an actual groove in your eye socket. That’s the supraorbital notch (or foramen), and it allows the supraorbital artery, veins, and nerve to run through.

Press it firmly (you can do both sides at once, assuming you have two thumbs) for about three seconds, and then massage it gently. Repeat as necessary, but it shouldn’t take more than about three goes to have cured the headache.

As a bonus, this is a great party trick for curing other people’s headaches, when the need arises!

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🌎 AROUND THE WEB

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• Research uncovers mechanism linking deep sleep to blood sugar control

• Lonely people's brains work differently, new evidence shows

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More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

The Diet Compass: The 12-Step Guide to Science-Based Nutrition for a Healthier and Longer Life - by Bas Kast

Facts about nutrition and health can be hard to memorize. There's just so much! And often there are so many studies, and while the science is not usually contradictory, pop-science headlines sure can be. What to believe?

Bas Kast brings us a very comprehensive and easily digestible solution.

A science journalist himself, he has gone through the studies so that you don't have to, and—citing them along the way—draws out the salient points and conclusions.

But, he's not just handing out directions (though he does that too); he's arranged and formatted the information in a very readable and logical fashion. Chapter by chapter, we learn the foundations of important principles for "this is better than that" choices in diet.

Most importantly, he lays out for us his "12 simple rules for healthy eating", and they are indeed as simple as they are well-grounded in good science.

Bottom line: if you want "one easy-reading book" to just tell you how to make decisions about your diet, simply follow those rules and enjoy the benefits... Then this book is exactly that.

Click here to check out The Diet Compass and get your diet on the right track!

Wishing you a healthy and restorative weekend, and a wonderful month ahead,

The 10almonds Team