There are so many body-mind fast facts, fixes and tricks that quickly and effectively decrease pain and enhance your life.
Your body can overcome the command of your mind in powerful yet simple ways.
It’s exciting to share just some of these powerful tools with you! If these don’t get you thinking about the body-mind/mind-body connection, I’m not sure what will.
Some of the following facts may seem like questionable, and they are much like magic tricks to fool your brain, but rest assured that they are all legitimate.
- Alleviate heartbreak – Heartbreak hurts. As much as it feels like it’s all emotional, heartbreak isn’t only an emotional experience, it’s physical! Taking aspirin helps to alleviate some of the intense physical and emotional pain of losing someone you love.
- Boost your Memory, Reasoning Skills, and Attention – Chew gum for 10 minutes to increase your cognitive skills. Pick your favorite flavor and get chomping (this also helps with stress reduction as well)! Oh, but keep in mind the effects only last for about 20 minutes.
- Reduce General Physical Pain – When you experiencing physical pain, your brain automatically intensifies the pain when you look at it. The fix? Either don’t look or reduce the pain by inverting a pair of binoculars so that instead of magnifying the visual site of your pain, it minimizes the view.
- Halt Panic Attacks – Feeling that dreaded feeling of intense panic (increased heart rate, difficulty breathing, deep fear for no known reason)? Fill up a wide bowl with ice water, take a deep breath and then dunk your whole face in it for as long as your breath will allow. This slows your heart which reduces the experience of panic in your body. Note: if you have any pre-existing heart conditions, do not use this suggestion.
- Experience Pain-free Injections/Needles – Research has shown that if you cough when you’re getting pricked by a needle, the cough raises pressure in the chest, which inhibits the pain signals in the spinal cord.
- Decrease Throat Tickles – Try scratching your ear! Yep, you can scratch the itch in your throat by scratching your ear which is said to cause a mini-spasm reflex in your throat which relieves the tickle.
- Cure the “Music Virus” – Have a song stuck in your head, playing on a loop? Try this for a cure. Think of the end of the song, maybe even singing the end of the song out loud. After doing this, the song should stop repeating in your head, due to something called the Zeigarnik Effect, which is your brain not liking things that are unfinished and once you finish it, the brain can let it go.
- Reduce Stress Levels – Take a bite of a mango, which has a compound called linalool that is said to help lower stress levels instantly.
- Overcome a Toothache – Instead of going to the source, rub ice on the back of your hand in the webbing between your thumb and your first finger. One study found that this technique reduced toothache pain up to 50% as compared to using no ice!
- Become Fearless – If you notice that you’re facing some fear, here’s a simple, fast biofeedback tool that great for grounding you. Stand tall, put one hand on your stomach and one hand on your heart. Breathe normally. Bring all of your awareness to to your breath. Notice what it feels like to breathe in your body. Next notice your heartbeat. Stay present to whatever you notice. Just 60 seconds or should do the trick.
- Get Happy – Write down one positive experience you’ve had in the last 24 hours. When you do this, your brain and body relive the experience and amplifies the effects of that positive experience, making you happier over all.
- Cool your Overheating Body – If you’re somewhere hot and it feels like your body is overheating, reduce your body’s temperature quickly by running cool water over your body’s “quick cooling spots,” which are also pulse points. Some of these pulse points include your wrist, the back of your knees, the inside of your elbow and/or the back of your neck.
- Postpone Peeing – Need to urinate and there’s no bathroom nearby? You’ve got a few interesting options here (aside from popping a squat somewhere in public and risking arrest). Either try scratching the back of your calf vigorously for a few moments, which is said to interrupt the message from your bladder to your brain, or think about sex which has similar effect.
- Fix your Burn – If you get a light burn, instead of icing it – clean your hand and put light pressure on the burned area. It won’t cool the pain quite as quickly as ice, but this natural approach to healing the burn helps to avoid blistering because it brings your skin back to its normal temperature.
- Stop Feelings of Loneliness – Take a hot shower or hot bath. In a study of 51 people, immersion in hot water helped to replace the social warmth they felt they were lacking, thus reducing their feelings of loneliness. Ok, so this may not stop the deeper reasons for your loneliness, but it can at least soften the immediate discomfort of feeling lonely.
Which of these do you use to make your body, your mind and your life better? Which of these will you try? I love to hear from members of the MindBodyWise Community, so please send me an email and let me know!
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P.S. Don’t forget to enjoy your journey of being human. If you’d like to join others who are also on a mindful path in life, please meet us in the free, private MindBodyWise Living Room on Facebook.
