It’s all well and good working out and exercising regularly but there are also a few weird health tricks that can also make your life better.
1. Cure a Tickling Throat
When you were 9, playing your armpit was a cool trick. Now, as an adult, you can still appreciate a good body-based feat, especially if it serves as a health remedy.
Take that tickle in your throat: It’s not worth gagging over. Here’s a better way to scratch your itch: Scratch your ear.
When the nerves in the ear are stimulated, it creates a reflex in the throat that can cause a muscle spasm, this spasm relieves the tickle.
SEE ALSO – 8 Things To Avoid Before Going To Bed
2. Improved Hearing
If you’re stuck chatting up a mumbler and struggle to hear them, lean in with your right ear. It’s better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech.
If, on the other hand, you’re trying to identify that song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones.
3. Overcome Your Most Primal Urge
Need to pee? No bathroom nearby? Fantasize about someone sexy. Thinking about sex preoccupies your brain, so you won’t feel as much discomfort.
4. Feel No Pain
German researchers have discovered that coughing during an injection can lessen the pain of the needle stick. The trick causes a sudden, temporary rise in pressure in the chest and spinal canal, inhibiting the pain-conducting structures of the spinal cord.
5. Clear Your Stuffed Nose
Forget Sudafed. Here’s an easier, quicker, and cheaper remedy to relieve sinus pressure: Alternate thrusting your tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pressing between your eyebrows with one finger.
This causes the vomer bone, which runs through the nasal passages to the mouth, to rock back and forth. The motion loosens congestion; after 20 seconds, you’ll feel your sinuses start to drain.
6. Fight Fire Without Water
Worried those wings will repeat on you tonight? Try this preventive remedy: Sleep on your left side. Studies have shown that patients who sleep on their left sides are less likely to suffer from acid reflux.
The esophagus and stomach connect at an angle. When you sleep on your right, the stomach is higher than the esophagus, allowing food and stomach acid to slide up your throat. When you’re on your left, the stomach is lower than the esophagus, so gravity’s in your favor.
7. Cure Your Toothache
Rub ice on the back of your hand, on the V-shaped webbed area between your thumb and index finger. A Canadian study found that this technique reduces toothache pain by as much as 50 percent compared with using no ice.
The nerve pathways at the base of that V stimulate an area of the brain that blocks pain signals from the face and hands.
8. Make Burns Disappear
When you accidentally singe your finger or something, clean the skin and apply light pressure with the finger pads of your unmarred hand. Ice will relieve your pain more quickly, but since the natural method brings the burned skin back to a normal temperature, the skin is less likely to blister.
9. Stop the World from Spinning
One too many drinks left you dizzy? Luckily there’s a remedy. Put your hand on something stable.
The part of your ear responsible for balance floats in a fluid of the same density as blood. As alcohol dilutes blood, the cupula becomes less dense and rises. This confuses your brain.
The tactile input from a stable object gives the brain a second opinion, and you feel more in balance. Because the nerves in the hand are so sensitive, this works better than the conventional foot-on-the-floor wisdom.
10. Unstitch Your Side
If you’re like most people, when you run, you exhale as your right foot hits the ground. This puts downward pressure on your liver (which lives on your right side), which then tugs at the diaphragm and creates a side stitch.
The fix: Exhale as your left foot strikes the ground.
11. Stanch Blood with One Finger
Pinching your nose and leaning back is a great way to stop a nosebleed—if you don’t mind choking on your own blood.
A more civil approach: Put some cotton on your upper gums—just behind that small dent below your nose—and press against it, hard. Most bleeds come from the front of the septum, the cartilage wall that divides the nose. Pressing here helps stop them.
12. Calm Yourself
Trying to quell first-date jitters? Blow on your thumb. The vagus nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing. It’ll get your heart rate back to normal.
13. Thaw Your Brain
Too much ice cream or cold drinks can freeze the brain. Press your tongue flat against the roof of your mouth, covering as much as you can.
Since the nerves in the roof of your mouth get extremely cold, your body thinks your brain is freezing, too.
The more pressure you apply to the roof of your mouth, the faster your headache will subside.
14. Prevent Near-Sightedness
Poor distance vision is rarely caused by genetics. It’s usually caused by near-point stress. In other words, staring at your computer screen for too long.
So flex your way to 20/20 vision. Every few hours during the day, close your eyes, tense your body, take a deep breath, and, after a few seconds, release your breath and muscles at the same time. Tightening and releasing muscles such as the biceps and glutes can trick involuntary muscles—like the eyes—into relaxing as well.
15. Stop Pins And Needles Effect
If your hand falls asleep while you’re driving or sitting in an odd position, rock your head from side to side. It’ll painlessly banish your pins and needles in less than a minute.
A tingly hand or arm is often the result of compression in the bundle of nerves in your neck; loosening your neck muscles releases the pressure. Compressed nerves lower in the body govern the feet, so don’t let your sleeping dogs lie. Stand up and walk around.
Bonus Trick To Impress Your Friends
Next time you’re at a party, try this trick: Have a person hold one arm straight out to the side, palm down, and instruct him to maintain this position. Then place two fingers on his wrist and push down.
He’ll resist. Now have him put one foot on a surface that’s a half inch higher (a few magazines) and repeat. This time his arm will cave.
By misaligning the hips, you’ve offset the spine, the brain senses that the spine is vulnerable, so it shuts down the body’s ability to resist.
Do you know of any other weird health tricks? If so tell us about them in the comments below.
Source: Men’s Health