Quick fixes for bodily annoyances

Do you ever find yourself desperately trying to cure hiccups, and advice on the Internet is like “breathe in through your ears while drinking vinegar upside-down through your nose”?

If so, you’re not alone. So, today we’re going to look at some science-based approaches to dealing with common bodily annoyances.

Hiccups

Unfortunately, most popular advices simply don’t work, and the only near-guaranteed way to cure these is with anti-convulsive medications whose side-effects may be worse than the hiccups.

However, before you head to the pharmacy, there is one breathing exercise that has a very simple scientific underpinning: 4:4 breathing. If you’re unfamiliar, it’s just:

1. Breathe slowly in through your nose to a count of four
2. Hold your breath for a count of four
3. Breathe slowly out through your nose to a count of four
4. Hold your breath for a count of four

…and repeat. The slower the better. At first, your hiccups will interrupt this, but just “keep calm and carry on”.

The reason this can work is that breathing is an autonomic function (e.g., it happens without us thinking about it) that, unlike most other autonomic functions, we can all control directly. By taking control of one, others will tend to fall into line with it.

For example, it is normal that your heart rate will tend to slow or quicken as your breathing slows or quickens, respectively.

Your hiccups? Autonomic function. Actually a very, very old evolutionary left-over trait, that’s only useful for protecting lungs while breathing underwater. In other words, it’s the bodily function thinks you’re a fish (or a tadpole-like amphibious creature) in the process of developing lungs. Unfortunately, because hiccuping doesn’t harm our chances of passing on our genes, it never got naturally de-selected so we still have it.

Anyway, the bottom line is: take control of your breathing in the aspects you can directly control, and the aspects you can’t directly control will fall into line. You may need to give it some minutes, don’t give up too quickly.

Headaches

If you ever get a headache and you don’t have painkillers or perhaps they’re not helping or you have another reason for not wanting to take them, there’s “one quick trick” that can cure most headaches in seconds.

First, the limitation: this will only cure headaches that have been caused by increased localized blood pressure in the forehead. However, that’s more than half of most common headaches.

Next, how it works…

We’re mentioning this first, because understanding how it works will give you more confidence in using it.

Your body has a wonderful homeostatic system, which is the system by which your body maintains its “Goldilocks zones” of not too hot or cold, not to acidine or alkaline, not too hydrated or dehydrated, blood pressure not too high or too low, etc. Sometimes, however, it can get confused, and needs a nudge back to where it should be.

One of the ways it maintains blood pressure is biofeedback from receptors in blood vessel walls, called baroreceptors. They are what it sounds like; they measure blood pressure internally.

In certain places, there are clusters of baroreceptors in one place. And if we press on that one place, the body will think “Oh no! Super high blood pressure in this bit!” and reduce the blood pressure immediately.

This is called the baroreflex, and that’s what you need to cure a hypertensive headache.

So, what to do:

With your thumb, carefully feel the upper inside corner of your eye socket. So, at the top, and about ¼ of the way out from the bridge of your nose. You should feel a groove. No, not like the Emperor’s New, but, an actual groove in your eye socket. That’s the supraorbital notch (or foramen), and it allows the supraorbital artery, veins, and nerve to run through.

Press it firmly (you can do both sides at once, assuming you have two thumbs) for about three seconds, and then massage it gently. Repeat as necessary, but it shouldn’t take more than about three goes to have cured the headache.

As a bonus, this is a great party trick for curing other people’s headaches, when the need arises!

How’s your heart rate variability?

The hallmarks of a good, strong cardiovascular system include a medium-to-low resting heart rate (for adults: under 60 beats per minute is good; under 50 is typical of athletes), and healthy blood pressure (for adults: under 120/80, while still above 90/60, is generally considered good).

Less talked-about is heart rate variability, but it’s important too…

What is heart rate variability?

Heart rate variability is a measure of how quickly and easily your heart responds to changes in demands placed upon it. For example:

• If you’re at rest and then start running your fastest (be it for leisure or survival or anything in between), your heart rate should be able to jump from its resting rate to about 180% of that as quickly as possible
• When you stop, your heart rate should be able to shift gears back to your resting rate as quickly as possible

The same goes, to a commensurately lesser extent, to changes in activity between low and moderate, or between moderate and high.

• When your heart can change gears quickly, that’s called a high heart rate variability
• When your heart is sluggish to get going and then takes a while to return to normal after exertion, that’s called a low heart rate variability.

The rate of change (i.e., the variability) is measured in microseconds per beat, and the actual numbers will vary depending on a lot of factors, but for everyone, higher is better than lower.

Aside from quick response to crises, why does it matter?

If heart rate variability is low, it means the sympathetic nervous system is dominating the parasympathetic nervous system, which means, in lay terms, your fight-or-flight response is overriding your ability to relax.

See for example: Stress and Heart Rate Variability: A Meta-Analysis and Review of the Literature

This has a lot of knock-on effects for both physical and mental health! Your heart and brain will take the worst of this damage, so it’s good to improve things for them impossible.

This Saturday’s Life Hacks: how to improve your HRV!

Firstly, the Usual Five Things™:

1. A good diet (that avoids processed foods)
2. Good exercise (that includes daily physical activity—more often is more important than more intense!)
3. Good sleep (7–9 hours of good quality sleep per night)
4. Reduce or eliminate alcohol consumption (this is dose-dependent; any reduction is an improvement)
5. Don’t smoke (just don’t)

Additional regular habits that help a lot:

• Breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation
• Therapy, especially CBT and DBT
• Stress-avoidance strategies, for example:
  • Get (and maintain) your finances in good order
  • Get (and maintain) your relationship(s) in good order
  • Get (and maintain) your working* life in good order

*Whatever this means to you. If you’re perhaps retired, or otherwise a home-maker, or even a student, the things you “need to do” on a daily basis are your working life, for these purposes.

In terms of simple, quick-fix, physical tweaks to focus on if you’re already broadly leading a good life, two great ones are:

• Exercise: get moving! Walk to the store even if you buy nothing but a snack or drink to enjoy while walking back. If you drove, make more trips with the shopping bags rather than fewer. If you like to watch TV, consider an exercise bike or treadmill to use while watching. If you have a partner, double-up and make it a thing you do together! Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Take the scenic route when walking someplace. Go to the bathroom that’s further away. Every little helps!
• Breathe: even just a couple of times a day, practice mindful breathing. Start with even just a minute a day, to get the habit going. What breathing exercise you do isn’t so important as that you do it. Notice your breathing; count how long each breath takes. Don’t worry about “doing it right”—you’re doing great, just observe, just notice, just slowly count. We promise that regular practice of this will have you feeling amazing