1. Cure a Tickling Throat
When you were 9, playing
your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still
appreciate a good body-based feat, especially if it serves as a health
remedy. Take that tickle in your throat: It’s not worth gagging over.
Here’s a better way to scratch your itch: Scratch your ear. “When the
nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that
can cause a muscle spasm,” says Scott Schaffer, M.D., president of an
ear, nose, and throat specialty center in Gibbsboro, New Jersey. “This
spasm relieves the tickle.”
2. Experience Supersonic Hearing
If you’re stuck chatting
up a mumbler at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It’s
better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech,
according to researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
If, on the other hand, you’re trying to identify that song playing
softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left
ear is better at picking up music tones.
3. Calm Yourself With Cold Water
Nerves getting the best
of you. Take a deep breath and spash cold water on your face. This
triggers the mammalian diving reflex that is genetically in all animals
including humans. The lower temperature of the water and you holding
your breath also causes your body to think it’s diving into cold water.
This reflex allows you to use oxygen more efficiently.
4. Overcome Your Most Primal Urge To Pee
Need to pee? No bathroom
nearby? Fantasize about what ever turns you on. Thinking about sex and
arousing fantasies preoccupies your brain,
so you won’t feel as much discomfort, says Larry Lipshultz, M.D., chief
of male reproductive medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.
5. Feel No Pain While Giving Blood
Love donating blood but
hate the needle prick? German researchers have discovered that coughing
during a needle stick can lessen the pain. According to Taras Usichenko,
author of a study on the phenomenon, the trick causes a sudden,
temporary rise in pressure in the chest and spinal canal, inhibiting the
pain-conducting structures of the spinal cord.
6. Swallow Your Horse-Sized Supplements
Those huge health
supplements are sometimes a pain to swallow. Want to swallow more than
one at a time without gagging? Try this trick to get them down: take a
drink of water, and tilt your head forward instead of backward. The
capsule should float, and will be at the back of your throat, ready to
swallow.
7. Clear Your Stuffed Nose
Forget Sudafed. Here’s
an easier, quicker, and cheaper remedy to relieve sinus pressure:
Alternate thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then
pressing between your eyebrows with one finger. This causes the vomer
bone, which runs through the nasal passages to the mouth, to rock back
and forth, says Lisa DeStefano, D.O., an assistant professor at the
Michigan State University college of osteopathic medicine. The motion
loosens congestion; after 20 seconds, you’ll feel your sinuses start to
drain.
8. Fight Acid Reflux By Sleeping Position
Worried that chilli
will repeat on you tonight? Try this preventive remedy: “Sleep on your
left side,” says Anthony A. Starpoli, M.D., a New York City
gastroenterologist and assistant professor of medicine at New York
Medical College. Studies have shown that patients who sleep on their
left sides are less likely to suffer from acid reflux. The esophagus and
stomach connect at an angle. When you sleep on your right, the stomach
is higher than the esophagus, allowing food and stomach acid to slide up
your throat. When you’re on your left, the stomach is lower than the
esophagus, so gravity’s in your favor.
9. Cure Your Toothache
Just rub ice on the back
of your hand, on the V-shaped webbed area between your thumb and index
finger. A Canadian study found that this technique reduces toothache
pain by as much as 50 percent compared with using no ice. The nerve
pathways at the base of that V stimulate an area of the brain that blocks pain signals from the face and hands.
10. Make Burns Disappear
When you accidentally
singe your finger on the stove, clean the skin and apply light pressure
with the finger pads of your unmarred hand. Ice will relieve your pain
more quickly, Dr. DeStefano says, but since the natual method brings the
burned skin back to a normal temperature, the skin is less likely to
blister.
11. Stop the World from Spinning
Feeling dizzy? Put your
hand on something stable. The part of your ear responsible for
balance–the cupula– floats in a fluid of the same density as blood. “As
alcohol dilutes blood in the cupula, the cupula becomes less dense and
rises,” says Dr. Schaffer. This confuses your brain. The tactile input from a stable object gives the brain
a second opinion, and you feel more in balance. Because the nerves in
the hand are so sensitive, this works better than the conventional
foot-on-the-floor wisdom.
12. Unstitch Your Side
If you’re like most
people, when you run, you exhale as your right foot hits the ground.
This puts downward pressure on your liver (which lives on your right
side), which then tugs at the diaphragm and creates a side stitch,
according to The Doctors Book of Home Remedies for Men. The fix: Exhale
as your left foot strikes the ground.
13. Stop A Nose Bleed
Put some cotton on your
upper gums–just behind that small dent below your nose–and press against
it, hard. “Most bleeds come from the front of the septum, the cartilage
wall that divides the nose,” says Peter Desmarais, M.D., an ear, nose,
and throat specialist at Entabeni Hospital, in Durban, South Africa.
“Pressing here helps stop them.”
14. Make Your Heart Stand Still
Trying to quell
first-date jitters? Blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve, which governs
heart rate, can be controlled through breathing, says Ben Abo, an
emergency medical-services specialist at the University of Pittsburgh.
It’ll get your heart rate back to normal.
15. Thaw Your Brain Freeze
Press your tongue flat
against the roof of your mouth, covering as much as you can. “Since the
nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, your body thinks
your brain is freezing, too,” says Abo. “In compensating, it overheats,
causing an ice-cream headache.” The more pressure you apply to the roof
of your mouth, the faster your headache will subside.
16. Prevent Near-Sightedness
Poor distance vision is
rarely caused by genetics, says Anne Barber, O.D., an optometrist in
Tacoma, Washington. “It’s usually caused by near-point stress.” In other
words, staring at your computer screen for too long. So flex your way
to 20/20 vision. Every few hours during the day, close your eyes, tense
your body, take a deep breath, and, after a few seconds, release your
breath and muscles at the same time. Tightening and releasing muscles
such as the biceps and glutes can trick involuntary muscles–like the
eyes–into relaxing as well.
17. Wake Up a Limb That Feel Asleep
If your hand falls
asleep while you’re driving or sitting in an odd position, rock your
head from side to side. It’ll painlessly banish your pins and needles in
less than a minute, says Dr. DeStefano. A tingly hand or arm is often
the result of compression in the bundle of nerves in your neck;
loosening your neck muscles releases the pressure. Compressed nerves
lower in the body govern the feet, so stand up and walk around if they
fail you.
18. Impress Your Friends
Next time you’re at a
party, try this trick: Have a person hold one arm straight out to the
side, palm down, and instruct him to maintain this position. Then place
two fingers on his wrist and push down. He’ll resist. Now have him put
one foot on a surface that’s a half inch higher (a few magazines) and
repeat. This time his arm will cave in. By misaligning his hips, you’ve
offset his spine, says Rachel Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., co-owner of Results
Fitness, in Santa Clarita, California. Your brain senses that the spine is vulnerable, so it shuts down the body’s ability to resist.
19. Breathe Underwater
If you’re dying to
retrieve that quarter from the bottom of the pool, take several short
breaths first–essentially, hyperventilate. When you’re underwater, it’s
not a lack of oxygen that makes you desperate for a breath; it’s the
buildup of carbon dioxide, which makes your blood acidic, which signals
your brain that something ain’t right. “When you hyperventilate, the
influx of oxygen lowers blood acidity,” says Jonathan Armbruster, Ph.D.,
an associate professor of biology at Auburn University. “This tricks
your brain into thinking it has more oxygen.” It’ll buy you up to 10 seconds.
20. Encode Long-Term Memory
Your own! “If you’re
giving a speech the next day, review it before falling asleep,” says
Candi Heimgartner, an instructor of biological sciences at the
University of Idaho. Since most memory consolidation happens during
sleep, anything you read right before bed is more likely to be encoded
as long-term memory.
21. Relieve a Migraine Instantly
The next time you are
about to reach for some pills to get rid of your headache, use your
thumb and forefinger and pinch down on the muscle on the web of your
hand (thumb on the back of your hand and forefinger underneath) and
press for 2 minutes. Repeat. Most headaches and migraines will ease
after just 4 minutes. This shiatsu point addresses headaches by
dispersing stagnant Ki (i.e. blocked energy) and moving blood in the
head, neck, and other parts of the body.
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