Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth to clear your nose? Touch your ear to scratch your throat? There are far more bizarre strategies than you might think to alleviate some feelings of uneasiness. Get to know some of them below, but remember: in the most serious cases, medical help is essential!
1) Ear scratching to cure throat irritation
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
The itch is an alert: something irritating is in contact with your body. When you scratch the spot, the message of «relief» is transmitted by neurons, which are grouped into nerves. As many nerves branch out to various parts of the body, stimulation at a single point may be sufficient to reach other regions.
nervous stimulus
The vagus nerve passes through the ear region and has ramifications that extend to various points, such as the back of the neck, mouth and even the heart. When you scratch your ear, it can stimulate the vagus nerve, causing a slight muscle spasm in its endings, including the one that reaches the throat. If it is itchy, the irritation may subside.
2) Sleep on the left side to prevent/cure heartburn
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
It’s dawn, you eat that leftover pizza and soon after you decide to sleep. The risks of painting a beautiful heartburn are great, that burning sensation that starts in the stomach and goes up to the throat. But, sleeping on the left side of the body, the discomfort can be reduced. This makes it more difficult for the gastric juice to reflux, which triggers this uncomfortable feeling.
1. The esophagus makes a slight curve before emptying into the stomach. If you lie on your right side, the stomach is above the esophagus, which facilitates the exit of acids and food residues towards the throat. This mixture outside the stomach can cause such burning
two. The trick is to lie on your left side. That way, the stomach is below the esophagus and, with the help of gravity, acid reflux is more difficult to happen. Even so, the ideal is not to lie down right after eating, as this can leave the food in the belly for a long time.
3) Pressing the roof of your mouth with your tongue helps relieve a headache from eating something cold
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
A lot of people get a headache when they eat ice cream or drink something too cold quickly. This happens because the body thinks that the head is «freezing» and sends the pain signal so that you stop ingesting that cold stuff. You can solve this problem by pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth for a few seconds. The effect is an increase in temperature at the site, which stops the “freezing” danger signals that cause the pain.
4) Put on a forced smile to avoid ringing in your ears
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
Sudden loud sounds – like a rocket exploding near you – can rupture the eardrum, a membrane in the ear. On the other hand, frequent exposure to loud sounds can cause minor injuries that leave a kind of tinnitus in the ear as a sequel. Keeping the muscle that stretches the eardrum relaxed, you leave this membrane with more “slack”, and therefore more protected. The best thing is that, to relax that muscle, just put a smile on your face!
1. The eardrum is a membrane that vibrates when we hear sounds. The louder the sound, the more strongly it vibrates. Because the eardrum is flexible, it’s easier to rupture when it’s stretched out. A neutral facial expression leaves the eardrum slightly stretched by the tensor muscle
two. By forcing a very “wide” smile, you stretch the zygomaticus major muscle and relax the tensor tympani, which is connected to it. With this, the eardrum is less stretched, reducing the risk of being injured. That is, when realizing that a loud sound is going to bomb, smile
5) Working one muscle helps heal a cramp in the opposite muscle
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
Cramps can have many causes, from muscle fatigue to circulation problems. The hallucinating pains are generated by the intense and involuntary contraction of a muscle. When it appears – mainly in the calf –, the instinctive action is to stretch the contracted muscle. The problem is that this forces the muscle against the movement it is performing, which can cause an injury. The best way out is to press the opposite muscle, called the antagonist. It’s just that when the antagonist contracts, the other muscle relaxes, ending the cramp.
1. Leg potato muscles – gastrocnemius and soleus – are very demanded, so she is the biggest victim of cramps. Don’t try to stretch it when a cramp strikes. With your hands, press the cinnamon hard. There is the anterior tibial muscle, antagonist of the gastrocnemius and soleus
two. Then force the leg forward, but resist this movement with your hands. By doing this, you contract the tibialis anterior muscle. As a result, the calf muscles – which are his antagonists – will gradually relax, without the risk of injury.
6) Feeling afraid helps hold a stomach ache
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
Is a stomach ache one of the most annoying things you can feel? The next time you go through such a perrengue, without even a bush nearby, the thing is to think or remember something that makes you very afraid. This sensation occupies your brain so much that it distracts from the discomfort – guaranteeing you a few more minutes until you find a “throne”…
7) Lying on the floor takes away the urge to faint
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
A faint happens when blood supply to the brain drops rapidly, a situation that can be caused by problems such as cardiac arrhythmia or a simple tighter collar. Before fainting, the body usually sends signals, such as the feeling of having darkened eyesight. If this happens to you one day, lie down on the floor. With the heart at the same level as the brain, it does not need to exert as much force to overcome gravity and pump blood “up the body” to the head – a problem that happens when you are standing or sitting.
8) Squeezing a hand point cures itchiness in another part of the body
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
Itches can even be delicious… As long as they can be scratched! Imagine an itch on the sole of your foot when you’re wearing a shoe and can’t take it off! One way out at these times is to keep pressed, for about a minute, the V-shaped area that is between the thumb and index finger of one of the hands. This is a key point of acupuncture, full of nerve branches. A stimulus applied to it can be reflected in various parts of the body – even the sole of the foot – working as a stopgap for a good scratch.
9) Press down on the forehead and roof of the mouth to help relieve a stuffy nose
– (Gil Tokio/Pingado/)
One of the reasons for the sensation of a stuffy nose is the increase in pressure in the sinuses, caused by the accumulation of mucus and swelling of tissues in the nasal region. To feel better, you need to reduce the pressure on the site, and a good solution is to move up and down a nose bone, the vomer.
1. Following the cartilage that separates the two nostrils is a slightly movable sheet of bone, the vomer. It stays right where the mucus that clogs the nose accumulates. Pinch the region between the eyebrows with a finger. This will make the vomer move down.
two. Then press your tongue against the roof of your mouth as hard as you can. The effect will be the opposite: the vomer will move upwards. Repeat both movements for about 20 seconds. Thus, you reduce the pressure in the nasal region, the mucus moves and the discomfort decreases.
Consultancy: José oswaldo de oliveira júnior, director of AC Camargo hospital