Thirty-two-year-old Jim Bell of West Palm Beach, Florida, had suffered for years from agonizing tension head-aches. Only constant medication could deaden the pain. But at the local Wickershaw Counseling Clinic, therapists taught Jim to use his imagination to relieve his pain.

Whenever a headache strikes, Jim lies down and goes into a state of deep relaxation. Then he asks himself what his headache pain feels like. His answer is the first thought that enters his mind.

“My headache feels like a knife plunged through my temple,” he may tell himself.

“What would soothe this pain?” he asks himself. “A block of ice,” his mind may reply. Jim then visualizes a knife plunged deep into his aching temple. On his inner video screen, he “sees” and “feels” the knife being slowly withdrawn from the painful area. As soon as it is withdrawn, he “sees” the upper part of his head encased in a block of ice.

“These images always stop the pain within a few minutes,” Jim reports. “The painful area in my head becomes numb. And in fifteen minutes, the headache is completely gone.”

Jim is one of thousands of former chronic headache sufferers whose pain has been relieved by a visualization process known as Creative Imagery.

C. Norman Shealy M.D., founder of the Pain and Health Rehabilitation Center, La Crosse, Wisconsin, has stated that he found relaxation and visualization techniques to be the single most important therapy pain clinics can offer to chronically ill individuals with a wide range of problems.

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Since biophysicist Harry C. Ehrmantraut, Ph.D. perfected the technique of the brush massage, thousands of headache victims have made the happy discovery that they can brush their headaches away.

All you need is a natural fiber brush with moderately stiff bristles. Rotate the brush in small half-inch circles so that when you brush the scalp, the upper ðàë of die circle goes towards the back of the head.

Begin brushing above one eyebrow and, rotating in small circles, work gradually back around the temple and dip down the side of the face to below the ear. Continue up again in front of the ear, back and over the top of the ear, and on down the neck.

This pattern takes your brush along both the temporal and occipital arteries. Repeat, starting and staying one inch above the previous pattern. Keep repeating and moving an inch higher each time until you finally brush right back over the center and top of the head and down the back of the neck. Then repeat the whole thing on the other side of the head. With practice, the entire process need not take more than 90 seconds.

The circular brushing motion appears to stimulate both muscles and arteries throughout the scalp and neck, improving muscle tone so that blood vessels return swiftly to normal size. Lacking a brush, you may massage with your

Mousing the same circular motion and following the patterns. However, when using the fingertips, each should a headache appear, begin the brushing technique immediately for speedy relief. It appears to work equally well for tension and migraine headaches. After brushing, relief may take a few minutes to appear. You can repeat the brushing technique at short intervals. But be careful not to make your scalp sore.

Professor Ehrmantraut has also recommended doing the brushing technique two to three times a day as a prophylactic measure. The most important times to brush are morning and night. Giving yourself a 90-second scalp brushing on awakening is a wonderfully stimulating way to greet the day.

A few tips: the scalp must be dry. Make sure you brush down in front of the ears, and also on the bony protuberances behind the ears. These protuberances are often a key point in the relief of tension headaches.

If you feel a headache approaching when at a social event, or a meeting or at work, it is usually possible to excuse yourself, go to the bathroom, and give yourself a 90-second brush massage. Most types of women’s hairstyles will permit all or most of the headache strokes. However, some migraine sufferers have reported that during attacks, their scalp has become so exquisitely sensitive that they have been unable to brush it at all.

It is vitally important to use a moderately stiff natural fiber brush. For more details, we recommend reading Professor Ehrmantraut’s book Headaches, the Drug less Way pasting Relief (Celestial Arts, 1987).

All in all, brushing is probably one of the easiest and most successful natural ways to overcome headaches.

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A theory becoming increasingly popular in pain clinics is that foods containing tryptophan may offer a safe and effective nutritional approach to headache relief.

The rationale is that tryptophan, an essential amino acid, is a precursor of serotonin, a neurotransmitter essential to pain control. Serotonin plays a dual role in the headache process:

• In response to emotional stress, blood platelets coagulate and release serotonin into the bloodstream. This serotonin constricts blood vessels and can readily precipitate Stage 2 in the migraine process.

• Serotonin is also released in the brain where it acts as an effective sedative, painkiller and antidepressant. In tandem with norepinephrine, serotonin limits passage of pain impulses through the brain’s “pain gate.”

By enhancing enkephalin and endorphin activity, brain serotonin also raises the pain threshold and blocks pain impulses. Serotonin is also a natural tranquilizer mat encourages sleep and it helps to relieve mild depression and anxiety.

Availability of serotonin in the brain is largely dependent on dietary sources of tryptophan. In many people, tryptophan has difficulty penetrating the blood-brain barrier, a protective biochemical shield. Tryptophan is prevented from reaching the brain by a flood of cotnjjeting amino acids, most of which are released from roods of animal origin. People with the lowest levels of brain serotonin are likely to be heavy eaters of meat, poultry, eggs, cheese and other whole milk dairy products.

This may sound contradictory, since these same foods are also rich sources of tryptophan. The problem is that each also contains even higher amounts of other amino acids, all of which compete with tryptophan for transportation through the blood-brain barrier. Additionally, many animal foods contain large amounts of saturated fats, which stimulate release of a prostaglandin that thickens blood and, indirectly, may assist platelets to clot and release serotonin.

Animal experiments by Drs. Wunman and Femstrom of M.I.T. a few years ago revealed that a diet high in complex carbohydrates, and low in fats and animal protein, is best for helping tryptophan to reach the brain.

However, except for beans, tryptophan exists only in foods of animal origin. The safest and best of these tryptophan sources is plain, nonfat yogurt, skimmed buttermilk, very low-fat cottage cheese, and nonfat or skim milk. Worthwhile amounts of tryptophan also exist in oily fish such as mackerel, sardines, salmon, haddock, cod and canned tuna. Oily fish of this type also contain EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) which, unlike saturated fat, actually thins blood and inhibits platelets from clumping and releasing serotonin.

Undoubtedly, the foods just mentioned are the safest sources of dietary tryptophan. Tryptophan also exists in whole-milk-dairy foods, poultry, meat and in non-oily fish.

The most effective way to boost brain tryptophan intake is to eat one or more helpings of the recommended tryptophan-rich foods at dinner. It is not necessary or desirable to eat larger-man-normal helpings.

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Whenever conditions conspire—stress mechanisms are simmering and adrenal hormone output is low—migraine can be triggered by a food or environmental stimulant. During evening and early night hours, almost anything with vasodilatory powers can set off neurological mechanisms mat dilate blood vessels in the head.

Among the most common vasodilating foods and beverages are aged wines, alcohol, some beers, yogurt, pickles, cheeses, caviar, pickled herring, cured meats, liver, mono-sodium glutamate, hot dogs, milk, meat, eggs and soy products. Many of these foods contain vasodilators such as nitrites, tyramine or phenylalanine.

Other common migraine triggers include

* skipping meals

* low blood sugar or hunger

* strenuous physical exertion

* ice cream or other cold foods or drinks

* high altitude

* flickering lights or bright,

* glaring sunlight hot, dry winds or weather smog and sulphur dioxide

* emissions from industrial

* smoking

* pollen and dust wearing swim goggles or mask

* loud noise

* oral contraceptives

* excitement

* abrupt changes of posture

* some medications, especially nitroglycerine (a potent vasodilator) premenstrual period

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The trouble with relying on drugs to relieve headache pain is that their painkilling effect steadily loses power, forcing the sufferer to take ever-stronger painkillers with increasingly potent side effects. As these new, stronger drugs also continue to lose effectiveness, chronic headache victims are typically shuttled from one specialist to another, none of whom can find anything wrong. All too often, they are finally told by their own doctor: “there is nothing more that modern medicine can do. You will just have to learn to live with your headache”.

By showing that there are, indeed, many things that can be done to relieve headache pain, behavioral medicine offers new hope and optimism to all who are trying to find their way out of the drug jungle.

A cautionary note: While these natural therapies have been used with considerable success by a number of headache and pain clinics, there is, of course, no guarantee that any one therapy is going to work for everyone, or in every case every time. All we can say is that these methods have been reported to be successful at least 50 percent of the time. Naturally, if a therapy does not appear to work for you, you should switch to another alternative healing modality.

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