VirusHead

Tips and tricks for those moments when your body is bugging you.

• Sinus Congestion? – Relieve sinus pressure by alternately thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger. You may look like Felix Unger, but the motion loosens congestion by making the vomer bone rock back and forth. This bone runs from the nasal passages to the mouth. After about 20 seconds, you’ll feel your sinuses start to drain. (Here’s another one that works for me: Get some Swiss Kriss, a laxative tea. Don’t drink it, but boil some in a pot of water. Being careful not to burn yourself, breathe in the scented steam. Side benefit: it empties your pores too – a great, cheap facial.)
• Toothache? – If you can’t get in to see the dentist right away, rub ice on the V-shaped webbed area between your thumb and index finger on the back of your hand. The nerve pathways at the base of that V stimulate an area of the brain that blocks pain signals from the face and hands. If you don’t have ice, you can rub that area too – if it hurts just a little, you’re doing it right. Adding ice to the mix reduces toothache pain by as much as 50 percent more.
• Tickle in your Throat? – Play with your ears or clean out that ear wax. When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex action in the throat. This can cause a muscle spasm that relieves the tickle.
• Burned your Hand? – If you singe the skin on your hand, clean the skin and apply light pressure with the finger pads of the other hand. Ice will relieve your pain more quickly, but this method might prevent blistering because it brings the burned skin back to a normal temperature.
• Can’t Hear That? – Lean in with the correct ear. Your left ear is better at picking up music. Lean in with the right ear to hear that mumbler friend of yours – it’s better at following the rapid rhythms of speech.
• Gotta Go? Fantasize. Thinking about sex preoccupies your brain, so you won’t feel as much discomfort if you’ve gotta pee. For various reasons, this probably works better for men. Women can also vigorously scratch or rub the back of your leg for a few moments – you may interrupt the message from your bladder to your brain just long enough for you to make it to the toilet. Well, it’s better than the old grab-your-crotch method.
• Heart Racing Jitters?– Blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing. It’s a variation of “stop and take three slow, deep breaths.”
• Relief for sudden pain – Coughing during an injection can lessen the pain of the needle stick. It causes a sudden, temporary rise in pressure in the chest and spinal canal, inhibiting the pain-conducting structures of the spinal cord. Um, don’t try this at the dentist.
• Dinner Repeating? – Sleep on your left side and you’ll be 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 works for you.
• Dizzy? – If you had a bit too much to drink, put your hand on something stable. The cupula (the part of your ear responsible for balance) floats in a fluid of the same density as blood, but rises as alcohol dilutes blood. Give your brain a second opinion on where to find grounding, using the sensitive nerve endings of your fingers. You’ll feel more in balance this way than by putting your foot on the floor.
• Stitch in your side? – Exhale as your left foot hits the ground. Most runners exhale as the right foot hits the ground, which puts downward pressure on the liver. This tugs at the diaphragm, causing a stitch. I guess you’re out of luck if you get stitches on the left side.
• Nose bleed? – Put some cotton on your upper gums — just behind that small dent below your nose — and press against it, hard. If your nose bleed comes, like most, from the front of the septum (the cartilage wall that divides the nose), this will work.
• Ice Cream Headache? – Press your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering as much as you can. The more pressure you use, the faster that headache will go away. Because your mouth is cold, your brain thinks that your body is freezing. It compensates by overheating – causing the ice-cream headache.
• Tingly Hands? – Rock your head from side to side. In less than a minute, the pins and needles will be gone. Loosening your neck muscles relieves compression in the bundle of nerves in your neck. If your feet or legs are tingling, you’ll just have to get up and walk around.
• Strengthen Your 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 major muscle groups can trick involuntary muscles – like the eyes – into relaxing as well. It’s good for stress too. Try a long body stretch with your eyes closed. You can also help prevent eye strain by exercising your eyes – if you stare at a computer screen all day, make sure to focus on something far away every so often. Play with depth of field.
• Know When to Fold ’em – Have someone 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. By misaligning his hips, you’ve offset his spine. Your brain senses that the spine is vulnerable, so it shuts down the body’s ability to resist. Now, how to get a burgler to put one foot on some magazines…
• Just Got to Remember This – Giving a speech? Going to an interview? Meeting the complicated in-laws? Review what you need to remember before you go to sleep. Anything you read right before bed is more likely to be encoded as long-term memory. Right, so I’ve got thousands of novels burned into my brain. I have always read non-fiction in the daytime and fiction at night – guess I should have done the other way around. People given a mathematical problem before they went to bed had higher chances of solving it the next morning, too. Experiment to see if the morning brings your solutions to you. Think carefully about the problem before going to sleep, then let it go – and let your brain work on it while you get some rest.
• Need a creative solution? Free your mind. Get out of the box – in all ways. Maybe you should take a little walk to the church on the corner. People tend to think more freely and abstractly in rooms with higher ceilings, and tend toward more detail-oriented specifics in more confined rooms with lower ceilings. So if you’re in a high-ceiling loft trying to do some accounting, you might want to cocoon? I’m going to refrain from further comment on this today (ex-JWs take note), except just to invoke the word “mountains.”
• Mood Hack – Let your thoughts and emotions be whatever they are, but play with the focus of your attention. You ignore almost all sensations and perceptions most of the time. Give your little toes the gift of your attention for a moment – wiggle them. Move your focus through your body, and especially notice your breathing. When you focus on it, your breathing automatically slows down and you breathe more deeply. Spend a few minutes moving your focus around through your toes and up to your head. Scrunch up your face. Smile. Stretch. Focus on the sensations you feel. Then focus on different aspects of and objects in your immediate environment. Try it. You’ll like it.

From Men’s Health and LifeHacker. The last one is mine, from lots of sources that I couldn’t possibly trace today.