Natural Remedies to Get Rid of a Headache

We turned to the experts for drug-free ways to tackle headache pain. Add these strategies to your arsenal to help alleviate future aches — and prevent them from happening in the first place.

April 14, 2021

By: Lauren Oster

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An All-Too-Common Complaint

Five years ago, the World Health Organization announced that an estimated half to three quarters of adults aged 18-65 reported a headache in the previous year, and that up to 1 in every 25 adults experienced a headache on 15 or more days every month. Not surprisingly during a stressful 2020, headache specialists and other health-care practitioners have related new or worsening symptoms in their patients over the past year.

When and How to Get Help

If headache pain is interfering with how you live your life, you should talk to your doctor — and according to the Mayo Clinic, if your headache includes emergency indicators like sudden and very severe pain, pain after an injury or fall, worsening pain that resists treatment, or symptoms such as fever, rash, neck stiffness, confusion and double vision, you should seek care immediately.

We’re here, in turn, to talk about the non-worrisome headaches, the ones that we resign ourselves to grinning and bearing. While there’s a great deal we don’t yet know about why headaches happen, there’s a great deal we’re learning about how to tackle them. Ready to add some strategies for combatting headaches to your arsenal? Read on.

Practicing Yoga

In a study published last year in Neurology, researchers in India found that yoga was a cost-effective and safe secondary treatment for migraine sufferers. That research could offer hope for other headache sufferers, too. “There are common triggers such as stress, anxiety, inadequate sleep, etc. for non migrainous headaches that may be alleviated by practicing yogic asanas, breathing and relaxing techniques,” says Dr. Gautam Sharma, a professor of cardiology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi and co-author of the study.

That doesn’t mean firing up a random YouTube class once your head begins to throb. Sharma suggests speaking with your doctor “regarding the general suitability for a yoga program” for you. “Needless to emphasize,” he adds, “a qualified and experienced teacher is important to supervise a safe and successful practice. Once adept at the technique, one may continue to self practice at home.”

Applying a Hot or Cold Compress

Though the mechanisms by which they work aren’t well understood, both hot and cold compresses are reported to be effective in reducing headache pain. The National Headache Foundation suggests applying cold packs to your temples, while warm packs should be applied to the back of your head and neck. Cold therapy is often associated with migraines (and heat, in turn, is associated with tension headaches), but effectiveness varies from person to person; split the difference and try a gel pack that can be heated or cooled and is designed to hold a therapeutic temperature for 20 minutes.

Cutting Down on Added Sugar

“People with poorly controlled diabetes are likely to experience headaches from a sugary diet because they’re more likely to experience blood sugar surges when they eat something sweet,” explains Samantha Cassetty, M.S., R.D., and co-author of Sugar Shock, about the hidden sugar in food. “A headache can be an early warning sign that you’re experiencing very high sugar levels.”

“Added sugars can slip into your diet in seemingly healthy foods, like oat milk and whole-grain bread, but the leading sources are soda and other sweetened drinks, including coffee and tea with sugar added or blended in, dessert, like chocolate, ice cream and cookies, granola bars and sweetened cereals,” Cassetty continues. “So when you’re looking to bring your added sugar levels in line with the recommendations, look at how often these foods show up in your life and take steps to reduce them.” If you love desserts, she recommends reaching for botanically sweetened products; she partners with Lily’s Sweets, a woman-owned brand that makes fair trade chocolate bars, candy and baking supplies with no added sugar.

Staying Hydrated

As low-risk interventions to reduce or prevent headache pain go, it doesn’t get much more straightforward than making sure you’re getting enough water, as the authors of a 2015 article in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice put it. “Your hydration needs can vary depending on things like how hot and humid it is, how much you sweat, and how active you are, but generally, men need about 16 cups of fluid and women need about 12 cups each day,” Cassetty says. “You don’t have to get all of this from water, though. You’ll get about 30% of that from foods, like watery fruits and vegetables (think: tomatoes, melon, cucumber and grapes) and even from drinks, like tea and coffee. Together with food and other drinks, most people can meet their fluid needs with between 8 and 11 cups of water each day.”

Expert tip: Want to mix things up a bit? “Make orange juice ice cubes and then add them to your water. This hack brings electrolytes, like potassium, to support your fluid balance,” says Cassetty.

Rethinking Meal and Snack Timing

“If you’re skipping meals or practicing intermittent fasting, it can definitely trigger a headache. In fact, headaches are often a sign that you’re really hungry!” Cassetty says. “If you’re experimenting with intermittent fasting or you’re just an erratic eater and you’re suffering from headaches, you may want to rethink your meal timing. Eating three meals a day at routine times can help. If you’re going more than four to five hours between meals, have a snack made with a combo of a fruit or veggie plus some protein or fat.” She suggests munching on walnuts with apple slices, or celery with hummus — both combos that provide steady energy and manage appetite, which can stave off a hunger-related headache.

Adjusting Your Posture

Jutting your chin forward and placing stress on your back neck muscles, rounding and slouching your shoulders, rounding your lower back and poor breathing can all contribute to headache patterns, says Jessa Zinn, an alternative medicine fascia expert at the Yinova Center in New York City. (Fascia is the sensitive connective tissue that provides internal structure in our bodies by wrapping around our muscles and holding organs in place.)

She suggests reducing physical tension and managing headache-triggering postures by making yourself aware of your posture, and adjusting it as necessary. Ideally, the top of your head should be over your pelvis, your chin should be slightly tucked, your ears should be over your shoulders, your shoulders should be over your pelvis and your feet should be flat. Scan your body and check those points, swallow to make sure your throat is not tensing, and relax down the front of your ribs while lengthening the back of your neck.

Rolling on Peppermint Oil

In a 2016 study, German researchers reported that applying a solution of 10% peppermint oil to the temples and forehead was comparable to taking Tylenol for tension headache sufferers. Try Nature's Truth Peppermint Essential Oil Blend, which contains both Mentha piperita (that is, peppermint oil) and Helianthus annuus (sunflower oil, the carrier in which it’s diluted).

Taking a Warm Shower or Bath

Much like applying a compress to the back of your head and neck, using heated water to dilate your blood vessels and relax tense muscles can be gently effective relief. If you’re standing, combine headache-busting strategies by sprinkling few drops of peppermint essential oil on the shower floor; if you plan a soak, add the oil to your bath water.

Getting Exercise

According to the American Migraine Foundation, regular exercise can reduce both the frequency and intensity of headaches. Following the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s guidelines, you should aim for at least 150 minutes (that is, 30 minutes per day for five days) of moderate physical activity each week. That said, exercise can also be a trigger for headaches, so it’s important to warm up to more vigorous moves with gentle activities like slow walking, stretching and lifting light weights. Experts also note that you can break those 30-minute chunks of exercise down even more: three 10-minute sessions in a single day are helpful as well.

Massaging Your Temples With a Tennis Ball

Tackle a tension headache with temporalis-muscle-massaging moves from Jessa Zinn: try holding a tennis ball (or something softer)to the side of your head, then gently compressing and releasing the ball against your temple a few times. Hold the ball in place, then make up-and-down and side-to-side “yes” and “no” motions with your head. Try rolling the ball both clockwise and counterclockwise against your temple as well. Watch Jessa’s demonstration of this technique — and another for releasing tension from your jaw — here.

Trying Mindfulness

In a 2018 research review, Chinese researchers who analyzed data from 11 trials with a total of 315 subjects with primary headache pain found that “mindfulness-based stress reduction displayed a significant positive influence on pain intensity.” In layman’s terms, this is an instance in which mind over matter is literal. Developing a personal practice that effectively manages your stress can potentially reduce pain. Give a method like the Calm app a try.

Learn More: 10 Designer Tips for Creating Mindfulness in Your Home