The human body can miraculously heal itself from cuts and wounds without our intervention. However, sometimes you may want to give your body a little help if you’re in a hurry for a cure. Try these cool “body tricks” to quickly heal everything from a hiccup to a scratchy throat!
Keep one Eye close
This is a brilliant but simple trick! Try to keep one eye closed while going to the bathroom in the middle of the night. According to Dr. Mercola, exposure to bright light on the retina of the eye tricks our brains into thinking it’s daytime, making it hard to fall asleep. So by keeping one eye closed for those midnight bathroom breaks, you can quickly readjust to the darkness and fall asleep like a baby once the lights go out.
Roll your Neck
If you’ve ever leaned your body weight up against your arm or hand for too long, you know what it feels like when those limbs become numb and “fall asleep.” Dr. Oz says that you go numb because you’ve been compressing the nerves and they aren’t getting enough oxygen. Instead of flailing your arm or hand around like a crazy chicken, try to wake up those frozen limbs by rolling your head to the back of your neck. This works because the nerves in your neck head straight down your arm to your hand, and are the root cause of the numbness. This won’t work with your foot, so you’ll just have to keeping doing the floor stomping dance to wake up your toes!
Hiccups
There’s never just one round of hiccups! When your diaphragm spasms, the air you are normally breathing in and out is halted by the vocal cords, causing the hiccup sound. Hiccups themselves can be caused by eating too quickly, swallowing too much air, sudden temperature changes in the stomach, or just being too excited! If you find yourself the unfortunate victim of this annoying condition, try opening your mouth and reflexively swallow. Continue to swallow for a few moments with your mouth open. This may help to calm the spasms in the diaphragm, making the hiccups disappear for good!
Hold back the Tears
At some point in your life, you’ll probably experience a public meltdown. Whether it’s bad news or just a very stressful work week, a breakdown can happen when you least expect it! If you feel the waterworks coming on, try this easy eye trick. Look around and find some objects to stare at. One at a time, slowly name the color of each object. By concentrating and focusing on the objects, you’ll start to calm your breathing and heart rate. This practice can prevent the tears from pouring out and potentially save you from embarrassment!
Pull your Ear
While you may already rub your temples to ease a headache, there are a few other pressure points that work even better. Try pulling your ear next time you feel a headache coming on. As opposed to a temple rub, which only relieves tension in the brow area, this ear tugging technique provides all-over relief. To do this, hold the “meat” of your ear and gently pull out and back. This moves the temporal bone just enough to allow fresh cerebral-spinal fluid in, cleansing and nourishing the area.
Afraid of needles?
For some folks, getting a flu shot or having blood drawn can instill a sense of fear and anxiety! The good news is that German researcher Taras Usichenko found that coughing while getting poked with a needle can trick your body into not feeling pain! The results of the study were inconclusive as to why it helps, but it could be due to either cognitive distraction or a temporary increase in blood pressure. So go ahead and cough a few times the next time a big, bad needle comes your way.
Thaw your Brain!
Most of us have had this happen to us before. We get excited about drinking that delicious ice cream milkshake and gulp it down way too fast! However, that split second of pleasure is often followed by an immediate and intense headache. It happens when your brain detects a sudden loss of heat, and it wants to protect itself! So it will force the blood vessels in the roof of your mouth to swell in size in order to bring the heat back, but the side effect is a brain freeze. Dr. Michael Sinkin says that you can easily and quickly get rid of that horrible brain pain by warming the roof of your mouth with your tongue.
Swallow pills with ease
Swallowing horse-sized pills can be problematic for many people, even if they don’t have any issues swallowing large portions of food. If you are on prescription medication, you don’t really have a choice in whether or not you want to take it. However, Dr. Mercola has an easy trick for swallowing pills with ease! Pop the pill in your mouth, take a sip of water, and lean your head forward as you swallow. By leaning forward, your body’s reflex will take over and naturally move the pill to the back of your throat so that swallowing it is painless!
Cool body tricks
Sometimes you need to help your body play catch up when you’re in a hurry to get rid of hiccups or swallow a handful of huge pills. These cool tricks are simple to do and you already have all the tools necessary - your body! So go ahead and try a couple of these ideas the next time you need a quick fix for minor health issues.
