60-second pain hacks
When you're in pain, it's like nothing else matters. Here are eight little tricks to cope. Also, a boneheaded mistake on my part, and 7 other things worth your time.
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Do you remember that Carly Simon song from the 1970s? “Haven't Got Time for the Pain”?
I'm pretty sure it was about heartache. But when you're in physical pain, it can be almost impossible to get past it.
That’s why I was glad to come across a series of YouTube videos a while back by Amy Rushlow, formerly of Prevention magazine, explaining how to make several common discomforts disappear.
Some of them are pretty cool, and they seem to work. Here are her eight quick fixes—how many of them are new to you? (Note: I’ve embedded the YouTube videos as we go along):
1. Cure a stress headache with a pencil.
In 2021? This one is relevant, to put it lightly. According to Rushlow, stress headaches are often caused by unintentional flexing of the muscles between your jaw and your ear.
So the trick is to consciously relax those muscles. Here's how: Grip a pen or pencil lengthwise with your mouth, but don't bite down.
Balancing requires you to relax your jaw muscle, which should ease the headache after a minute or so.
2. Cure a sinus headache with peppermint oil.
You'll need to plan ahead for this one, but if you're prone to sinus headaches, it makes sense.
Rushlow suggests mixing a few drops of peppermint oil—you don't need much, because it's highly concentrated—with a small amount of another, unscented oil. (She uses jojoba oil, but baby oil will work as well.)
Then rub the concoction on your temples and work inward along your brow bone. Peppermint oil contains menthol; menthol helps clear sinuses.
3. Cure other headaches with acupressure.
A friend taught me this one in law school. It works magically—if you can find the exact spot.
You’re looking for the point on your left hand where the bone from your thumb meets the bone from your index finger. Press firmly right in that spot, using both the thumb and forefinger from your right hand, then slowly rotate in small circles.
It takes a few minutes, but you should feel relief. The explanation is that the nerves that signal headache pain are associated with the nerves in that spot on your hand.
4. Clear a stuffy nose with your tongue.
If you've got a stuffy nose, rather than trying a bunch of medicines, all you have to do is gently rock a bone in your skull back and forth.
OK, I know this sounds crazy, not to mention kind of gross and maybe even dangerous. But it's perfectly safe, and it works.
Press your tongue against the roof of your mouth, and then press your fingers against your skull, pretty much between your eyebrows. Alternating like this for about 20 seconds will gently rock the vomer bone in your skull back and forth, which will help dislodge whatever's stuffing up your nose.
5. If that doesn't work, hold your breath.
Yep. Tip your head back, take a deep breath, pinch your nose, and hold it as long as you can—really, until you can't stand it and have to exhale. Voilà: instant unstuffed nose.
Why? You're tricking your brain into thinking that there's some kind of emergency preventing you from getting enough oxygen. Its response? Unstuff your nose.
(Left for discussion elsewhere: Why doesn’t your brain just unstuff your nose in the first place? But if it works, it's probably better not to argue.)
There are also a few quick fixes for back pain in the video series. These aren't quite as miraculous—more like exercises and stretches—but they're still designed to make the discomfort go away.
6. Ease back pain by relaxing muscles.
A lot of us have back pain because we’ve been sitting in an office environment or at a makeshift work-from-home setup and have unintentionally clenched our back muscles while scrunched over a computer all day.
To help, make a fist with one hand in front of you and wrap your other hand around it. Roll your shoulder blades toward each other for five seconds, and then shake it out.
"Your muscles will be completely relaxed," Rushlow says.
7. Stretch your pecs.
According to Rushlow, you can also wind up with back pain because your pectoral muscles contract—again, typically from being hunched all day, whether in front of your computer or pecking on your smartphone.
Her solution: stretch your pectoral muscles—30 seconds on each side—by using a doorframe as a brace.
8. Make a Y and a W.
The last stretch involves standing with your back against a wall and elevating your hands over your head until you're basically making a Y with your body. Next, slide your arms downward and bend at the elbow, until you've mimicked a W.
The key is to make sure your back, shoulder blades, and arms all stay in contact with the wall.
"Do that 10 times, and do it once a day for the best results," Rushlow advises.
OK. Call for comments: I am 100% sure that at least some of you will have additional pain and health hacks to share. Let us know in the comments.
Missed Tuesday’s Understandably Live?
No problem; it’s right here. I talked with Brian Moody, executive editor of AutoTrader (and fellow guy-who-still-uses-AirPods-with-wires), about how to buy a new car in the unique 2021 economic situation.
Just spell my name right!
Classic journalism advice: If you do nothing else, get the names right. And yet here I am, having to admit that I misnamed the winner of our trivia contest. Our winner was Teri Benaron (not “Bannon.”) Mea culpa!
7 other things worth your time
Jeff Bezos and friends had breakfast, then went to space, then came back in time for lunch. Afterward, he gave a “tone-deaf” speech in which he thanked Amazon workers and shoppers for paying for it all. (Dallas Morning News, Mediaite)
Prince Harry is writing a book, along with “power ghostwriter J.R. Moehringer,” who previously helped write Andre Agassi’s and Phil Knight’s autobiographies. (NY Post)
In November, Maine voters will be the first in the nation to consider embedding in the state constitution an amendment that establishes a fundamental right to grow and consume food for their own nourishment. (Portland Press Herald)
The chairperson of former President Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee was arrested Tuesday and charged with unlawfully influencing the foreign policy positions of the campaign and administration to advance the interests of the United Arab Emirates. (NBC News)
President Joe Biden has picked Jonathan Kanter to serve as the Justice Department’s assistant attorney general for antitrust, in a major win for progressive Democrats. Kanter’s work over the past decade includes representing companies, including Microsoft, that lodged antitrust complaints about Google. (Politico)
Netflix recently reported its worst slowdown in subscriber growth in eight years as people emerge from their pandemic cocoons. So on Tuesday, the video streaming giant announced it will offer video games in its existing subscription plans at no extra cost, but didn’t say when that service will launch or what kind of games it will be developing. (AP)
It’s like Airbnb, but for—oh wait, yes, Airbnb for backyard pools kind of makes sense. (WSJ, $)
Thanks for reading. Photo credit: Pxfuel. I wrote about some of this at Inc.com. Want to see all my mistakes? Click here.
I read your article and comments early this morning and hope I get my comment in before the deadline tonight. Whether you knew it or not, today's pain topic was for me! I was misdiagnosed in the ER and sent home with medicine for a common malady and for pain. Several days later the back of my neck area, which is where I indicated as the source of pain, began to harden and become numb. This sensation, along with the same excruciating pain in the original area, spread to my ear and my jaw. The left side of my neck, ear, and jaw are now numb, but some areas manage to attack with pain that comes and goes. Too long a story concluded, I have found a tumor, and all of these symptoms mimic what eventually killed my mom, non-Hodskins lymphoma. I went to my regular doctor who ordered a series of tests. We are awaiting the results. Emotional and physical pain are a formidable enemy, but I actually knew some of your suggestions and know they help. Thank you for the column. I intend to try the methods that are new to me. // To your readers: Doctors are human and see you briefly. You know your bodies better than anyone. I told my mom's doctor for a year about the intermittant hardness and swelling in her neck. When her tumor was the size of a lemon and visible, he became concerned. When I told him I had been talking about it for a year, he found nothing in his notes about it. It was at the top of the list in every appointment in the journal I kept for her appointments and test results. By then, it was stage 4. She took two chemo treatments and told the doctor she wouldn't be back. She said she wanted to spend the rest of her life enjoying her daughter. I had no idea she was going to say that, but we did exactly that. So, if you have something your doctor doesn't take seriously, find another. I hope I found mine early, but my body tells me it's been happening and I have neglected the symptoms. I hope I leave this world as bravely and as gracefully as she did. I think everyone does. God bless and take care! Thank you for all your writings, Bill. I have become a devoted fan. Today's was what I needed to hear.
I was hit by a truck during my civil rights working days and suffer continuously from sharp pain extending from my spine to toes on my left foot. It's manageable most days debilitating others especially laying down at night. Here are my best choices: 1. take opioids but manage them and not let them manage your pain. However, I would nominate their inventor for a Nobel Prize. Opioids don't cure anything but after a while, you don't care. 2. fill a sock with rice and heat in microwave for 2-3 min- whatever you can tolerate- & put on sore spots. 3. hot, hot, shower. 4. walk don't run; the latter aggravates the nerves. 5. Have Sex--takes your mind off the pain