Herbal Health
Herbal Remedies Blog
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WHAT IS RELAXATION?
During a 1986 study at the Menninger Foundation, researchers Joseph Sargent, M.D. and Patricia Solbach, Ph.D. found that many of their patients were unaware of what it felt like to be deeply relaxed. Only after undergoing relaxation training could they appreciate the difference between tense and relaxed states. One reason is that millions of headache sufferers live in a continual state of emergency and may not have experienced genuine relaxation in many years.
Biofeedback therapists have shown that mind and body are intimately linked. When body muscles are tense, the mind is anxious and disturbed. Conversely, when body muscles are relaxed, the mind also becomes calm and relaxed—a transformation which takes only two or three minutes. And when the mind is relaxed, muscular tension also swiftly drops away.
Important physiological changes occur as we achieve the relaxation response. The breathing rate slows from an average 15-22 breaths per minute to only 4-8 breaths per minute. The pulse rate slows, the mind becomes clear and calm, and every muscle, bone and cell feels completely rejuvenated. We sink into a pleasant state of calm and stillness, liberated from all involvement with anything external.
A caution: because muscle-tensing calls for a brief but strenuous physical effort, anyone suffering from any form of chronic disease, or who is under medical treatment, or who for any other reason should not undertake muscle-tensing, should consult his or her physician before attempting any form of muscle-tension therapy. If you are in this category, you’ll want to know that it is possible to skip the physical act of muscle-tensing and still achieve a relatively deep level of relaxation. Muscle-tensing is just faster and thorough.
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NATURAL MEDICINES MAY BE SUPERIOR
Before dismissing homeopathy as unscientific, we should not forget that the adverse side effects of many pharmaceuticals include symptoms of the very disease that the drugs are prescribed to cure. Certain drugs prescribed for headaches can cause more headaches in some people. Likewise, some drugs and treatments prescribed to cure cancer may actually cause more cancer than they cure.
Unlike modern-day herbalists who tend to prescribe a mix of herbs, homeopathic physicians prescribe a single remedy. That remedy is then given in frugal amounts to match the totality of Whole Person symptoms. For successful homeopathic diagnosis and treatment, you should consult a licensed homeopathic physician. Nonetheless, due to opposition from mainstream medicine, most Americans have been deprived of access to a licensed homeopathic physician. As a result, tens of thousands of Americans, disillusioned with allopathy, are being forced to practice do-it-yourself homeopathy. Nowadays, many health food stores, as well as some drug stores, carry a full range of homeopathic OTC remedies.
To make prescribing easier, a variety of homeopathic health care kits is appearing together with packaged OTC homeopathic medicines. Some of these packaged medicines are combinations of various homeopathic substances. This commercial shotgun approach directly contradicts one of homeopathy’s cardinal principles, which is to select a single remedy.
Another important homeopathic principle is that the more times a medicine is diluted, the more potent it becomes. While this also may sound illogical, let’s not forget that fewer than 15 percent of all medical treatments have been scientifically validated by controlled studies. And Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. reminds us in his book Superimmunity (Ballantine, 1987) that out of every ten people who see a medical doctor: eight neither get better nor worse as a result of medical intervention; one gets worse—often with the help of a new disease induced by a drug prescribed by the doctor; and only one out of ten (ten percent) actually benefits from medical treatment.
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GUILTY FOODS
Most clinical ecologists (allergy doctors) believe that migraine may be triggered by addictive cravings for foods that contain amines. Amines are precursors of several neurotransmitters that cause the brain to secrete enkephalin and endorphins, morphine-like narcotic painkillers. Eating amine-rich foods creates a painless high that makes us feel good. We then develop an addiction to these foods. When we stop eating them, we experience withdrawal symptoms. So we give ourselves another fix by eating more of the foods we crave. Regardless of how much we eat, we continue to crave these foods.
The catch is that most foods high in amines are also powerful vasodilators. In conjunction with emotional stress, and when the body’s adrenal-hormone supply is at a low point in its daily cycle, amines from foods can easily trigger a Stage 3 dilation and set off migraine in a susceptible person.
Among the most potent vasodilators in common foods are:
* tyramine, found in most red wines, cheeses, liver, cured meats and chocolate
* octapamine, found in citrus
* phenylethylamine, found in chocolate and alcohol
* monosodium glutamate, found in Chinese restaurant food and in many canned and processed foods
* sodium nitrite (and sodium nitrate), found in many types of cured meats
All foods containing these substances are high on the list of suspected migraine trigger foods.
Some other common migraine trigger foods are:
* commercial salad dressings
* eggs
* yeast products, including yeast breads
* chocolate milk
* syrup
* nuts; dried peas and beans
* most commercial baked goods, ice cream especially pies, brownies, doughnuts, cookies, cakes
* white flour
* white sugar
* most canned, preserved and processed foods
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MENSTRUAL MIGRAINES
In diagnosing a benign headache, it is helpful to know that both tension and migraine headaches are twice as common in women as men. By comparison 19 of every 20 cluster headache sufferers are male.
Seventy percent of migraine sufferers are women in their childbearing years, m 60 percent of women migraineurs, the attacks occur during the week preceding, or during, menstruation. Other women experience migraine at the midpoint of the menstrual cycle, during ovulation. Migraines related to the menstrual cycle are often called menstrual migraines.
Menstrual migraines usually end by the third month of pregnancy, and the arrival of menopause liberates most women from further migraines. These clues indicate that migraine is related to hormone instability. And. indeed, taking estrogen or birth control pills can increase the frequency and intensity of migraine in women.
Most headache specialists believe that migraines are due to an inherited biochemical or hormonal imbalance. As a result, migraines tend to run in families. Thus children may experience migraines at a quite early age. Symptoms are similar to those in adults. Any child with migraine
should be checked by a pediatrician to rule out the possibility of a disease-related headache.
Efforts to define a migraine personality have been unsuccessful, but many migraineurs seem to have low blood pressure, flexible arteries, cold hands, low blood sugar and unusually sensitive nerves. Women may experience menstrual irregularities. Classic migraineurs tend to be perfectionists, compulsively tidy and well-groomed, and may speak in hurried phrases. Many high achievers have been migraine sufferers.
Our personal observations indicate that the majority of people who suffer chronic headaches, both tension and migraine, are unable to handle stress in a relaxed way. Perhaps this is one reason why headaches are more common in younger than in older people. Headaches are most prevalent in women aged 20 to 30 and in men aged 30 to 40.
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HEADACHES ARE A WHOLE PERSON DYSFUNCTION
Another reason that headache clinics have been eminently successful is mat their treatment methods are based on the Whole Person or holistic approach. This is logical since almost all headaches begin with emotional stress mat is translated into physiological mechanisms. Pain occurs as arteries in the head dilate. But the pain itself can only be experienced in the brain.
A headache is, therefore, a Whole Person phenomenon that involves the physical, mental, emotional, attitudinal, cognitive and even the nutritional and spiritual levels of the body-mind. Headache clinics respond to this Whole Person involvement by employing an array of alternative
healing therapies which work on varying levels of body-mind function.
Doctors have attempted to duplicate the holistic approach by using a “background” drug as a daily prophylactic, and then using painkilling drugs whenever a headache occurs. As might be expected, this shotgun approach serves only to multiply side effects to the point where patients become increasingly depressed, helpless and dependent on drugs.
What most of us fail to recognize is that drugs often only duplicate tasks that the body-mind itself is entirely capable of doing in a normally healthy person.
In most cases, by using the natural therapies in this book, we may restore lost functions to the point where drugs are no longer needed. Our body mind then becomes capable of taking over the job once more.
The Whole Person approach to healing is also known as holistic healing or holistic medicine. In medical science, its equivalent is behavioral medicine, a multi-disciplinary approach which employs multi-modal therapies. This means that behavioral medicine is administered by M.D.s. Although able to prescribe strong drugs should they be needed, behaviorial physicians prefer to minimize the use of pharmaceuticals, and most employ drugs only when absolutely essential. Much preferred are harmless, non-drug therapies such as acupuncture, acupressure, nutrition, massage exercise, heat and cold therapy, relaxation, biofeedback, creative imagery, stress management and cognitive positivism.
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