When your jaw gets tight or your head moves forward the muscles around your upper back, neck and face get strained and tight.  Tight muscles clamp down on nerves and blood vessels.  The result is a muscle tension headache.

What natural steps should you take to get rid of tension headaches?

1.  Watch your posture.  Try to keep it neutral and straight.  A strong back will help with this.

2.  Use a pillow or rolled towel behind your waist to help you sit upright.

3.  Ice the back of your neck.  Try to wrap your cold pack all the way down to the notch between your collar bones.  Some people find heat to be more beneficial.

That’s it in a nutshell:  Muscles cause painful tension headaches.

When you are stuck at the desk do the same thing that is recommended during air travel:

I call them ‘butt-ups.’  Squeeze your buttocks; make the buttock muscles tight so that you get pushed up.

If you did this several times, you would look like you are bouncing.  Do it several times in a row.  The muscle contractions get the blood and lymph fluid moving.  You can do this with large or small squeezes.  You can also alternate sides–left, right.

Also, to help reduce the swelling in your legs, at other times, lift one foot and rotate the ankle several times.  Alternate legs and directions.  Also do toe lifts (lift your toes toward your knee.)

If you are able to stand for a few minutes, do a couple of toe raises.  And lift a leg behind you.  Lift one leg at a time behind your body to stretch out the front side.

You should have enough room behind the back of your chair seat and your thighs so that you can slide your fingers between seat and thigh.  That way there is no pressure on your thighs.

But you don’t want to have too much bend in your knees, either.  The solution may require some trial on your part.  Sometimes sliding the  feet forward a bit helps.  Or maybe you can create a seat with a downward tilt to it by placing a folded towel on the seat and see whether that helps?

Or maybe lots more standing breaks?

http://www.simplestrengthening.com/2008/03/30/legs-feeling-weak-or-achey-how-balancing-can-help-your-legs-get-stronger/

That link will take you to an article about  how to balance on one foot.  That uses ALL the muscles in your leg and so squeezes the blood and lymph vessels to keep the fluid moving.

Also, if you notice that you are leaning forward in your chair to do your reports or desk work,  strive to sit more upright and create less angle between your thighs and abdomen.  Maybe you can pull your chair in closer to the desk?

I know there are all of these various issues that we have to adapt to as we get older like vision issues, etc., but sometimes making little adjustments or adaptations can make a big  difference in our comfort and in our future comfort.  That’s why you want to take steps now to reduce that work-day swelling–to keep your blood vessels healthy and flexible.

And here’s the overall picture of how we want to be:  Strong back side but soft calves, head over our shoulders rather than in front, breastbone raised.

And walk!  Walking is excellent for legs.  Get a free report here about the secrets of happy walkers:  http://WalkingSmart.com

I hope these steps will help you start getting rid of the swelling in your legs soon.

You can feel the muscle that crosses your jaw joint if you place your fingers over the joint and pretend you are chewing.  That’s the massater.  You have two–one on each side.

You can also feel the temple muscles by placing your fingers on the sides of your head in line with your eyebrows and pretending to chew.   Again, this muscle is on each side of your head.  It the temporalis muscle.

There is a depression in your skull on each side and the temporalis muscle is packed in there.  It’s actually a pretty good sized muscle.

The red area in the picture is the muscle and the white area that attaches to the lower jaw bone is the tendon.

Beside causing head and jaw pain, these muscles can also cause pain in your teeth!  It’s not your teeth, though.  It’s trigger points in the muscle that fire into your teeth and cause it to feel like tooth pain.

What can you do to make the temporalis muscle relax so it will bother you less?

1.  Pull your hair.  If you do this correctly it is called ‘Cranial Fascial Release.’  Here’s how:

Glide your fingers through your hair at the scalp over your temple muscles.  Close or clench your fingers with hair laced between them.  As you do this, you will start pulling your hair at the roots or scalp.  You will feel the pull or stretch on your head.

This is different from holding your hair away from your head and pulling.  One woman told me, “Oh yes, I know about hair pulling–I had sisters!”  Ouch!

This type of pulling will help lift the skin and muscle and fascia from the bone.  It will help relax the muscle.

At first it will feel quite tender but if you can hold it for several seconds you will feel less tenderness.  That’s because the muscle is relaxing.

After a few sessions you can slightly twist your hand after you clench your fingers around your hair at the scalp.  Twist your clenched hand to the right and hold until you feel the muscle start to be less tender.  And then twist in the opposite direction.  It’s usually too tender to lift and twist the first time or two.

As you can see in the picture, this is a large, wide muscle.  Work the whole muscle by moving your hand to adjacent areas and starting the pulling again in each area.

You don’t have to do the whole muscle or both temple muscles at once.  You can do a little and take a break if your hand gets tired.  Just come back to it later when you are ready.

Some therapists try pressing into the temporalis muscles.  This doesn’t seem to work as well as pulling them and I, personally, find it to be pretty annoying.

2.  Apply either warm compresses or cold packs to these muscles.  If heat is the wrong choice, your muscles will feel a bit worse rather than better and more relaxed.   If that happens, switch to cold packs.  You can also use contrast therapy by applying heat, cold, heat, cold.

The good thing about applying heat or cold therapy is that you are also treating nearby muscles at the same time.  Check out the Ice & Heat Category here on the right hand side.

3.  There’s a good chance that the muscles at the base of your head are also involved.  Heat might be a fine treatment there at the top of your neck because heat is usually the treatment of choice for muscles.

But if the nerves are aggravated at the base of your skull then cold therapy is the way to go.

4.  Chewing food and gum may aggravate your symptoms OR chewing may help your muscles to relax.  It depends on the cause of your jaw pain and how tight the muscles are.

Pretending to chew with your lips closed and teeth apart may help your chewing muscles to relax.

5.  Posture can cause jaw pain.  Check your posture.  If your head is forward (in front of your body) rather than over your body it strains the muscles around the jaw.

If you have upper back and neck pain or knots in your back, there is a great chance that your posture needs improvement.

Gravity is always trying to pull us forward and down.  We can counteract that by keeping a strong back side from knees to head.  There are articles at http://SimpleStrengthening.com to help you strengthen your backside.

If you take action you can help your temporalis muscles relax and help your jaw to feel better naturally.

1.  Stretch your arm up and slightly backward.

2.  Squeeze your shoulder blades toward your spine.  Or try to touch your elbows together behind your back.  You probably can’t really do that but it gets your muscles moving in the right direction.

3.  Place your mouse in front of your body near the midline as close as possible.

4.  Switch to your left or opposite hand.  This really is doable and will only take you a couple of days to get used to it.

5.  Roll your shoulders up and back, up and back.

6.  Keep the elbow of your mouse hand next to your waist.  No stretching forward allowed!  It’s the stretching that aggravates the muscles near your shoulder blade.

There is a little video at http://budurl.com/CircleArms that will help you learn how to balance all of the muscles around your shoulder.

And if your hands or arms are having uncomfortable symptoms, there are lots of articles and information at http://CarpalTunnelPainReliefNow.com

When you take steps to balance your muscles and stop doing the things that are causing your symptoms, you can get rid of that ‘mouse shoulder pain.’

You can create a lumbar support from a small folded hand towel or create a  “pillow” from a batt of fiberfill.  Get a bag of fiberfill batting at a fabric store or KMart.

Remove the batt from the bag and fold it to where it feels good for your back.  Cut off the piece you will use.  That becomes your new lumbar support pillow.

The beauty of fiberfill is that it doesn’t cost much.  Batting comes in a roll or sheet.  You don’t want the fluffy loose fill; you want a batt.  It says batting on the label.

You can put your homemade pillow into a pillow case or not.

Make a few different sizes and you can switch as the day goes on.

Muscles like to be in a lot of different positions.  So sometimes you can use a lumbar support and sometimes don’t use one. Keep your back muscles moving and they will give you fewer aches and pains.

The lumbar support fills the little hollow in your lower back.  It should be placed behind your natural waist.

If you have a big hollow behind your waist that means the muscles in your lower back are a bit too tight.  It also means that muscles in the front of your legs and probably your abdomen are pulling on your spine, too.  You are only supposed to have a little hollow in the small of your back.

Making your own lumbar support is a great way to help relieve lower back pain naturally.

Discover more great information to get rid of your aching back at http://BackPainNaturalRelief.com

A rheumatologist (a medical doctor who specializes in arthritis and similar diseases) said that if you lose just ten pounds–Just Ten Pounds!–a lot of your foot pain will be gone!

Gone!

She said you don’t have to get to normal weight to get rid of foot pain.  Just getting rid of those ten pounds will make a big difference in how your feet hurt. 

Here’s  a simple, all natural weight loss plan from me for you.

It is really easy to lose weight if you take these steps:

1.  Only eat things that grew.

(Bread doesn’t grow, cereal didn’t grow, ice cream didn’t grow…you get the idea.)

Fruits, vegetables, some meat or eggs or fish, whole grains like brown rice or whole oats–those are things that grew.

You can eat all the veggies you want, either raw or cooked.  Beans grow.  Nuts and seeds grow.  Coconuts and avocados grow, too.

Add a little olive oil or real butter on cooked veggies if you want.  Bodies need some healthy fats like that.  If you add salt try to make it sea salt.

Cook your whole grains.  Make them from scratch.  If you bring a pot to boil at bedtime and let the grains sit overnight in the covered pot they will be just right for breakfast.  Add an egg and you are good to go!

2.  Every day do active fun things like dance or walk or run or jump or swim.  Do the things you like the most and do them often.

If you can’t do such things, wiggle your toes, twist your hair, do seated leg lifts, swing your arms.  The point is to move!

Muscles love movement!

3.  Drink lots of water.  Make that your drink of choice.  That’s what your cells crave and need.

Let’s think about a dog or cat or horse.

If that animal ate chocolate ice cream and pop he wouldn’t be healthy.  His body would have trouble trying to process those things.  Your body is the same way.

Now let’s think about your car.

If you put milk in the engine it wouldn’t run.  Your engine (your body) needs the correct fuel just as your car does.

It’s hard for some people to eat the right foods because they don’t have enough money but for some of us it’s all about making the right choices.

And after a while you will really look forward to a piece of crunchy fruit or vegetable instead of a ‘goodie.’

I promise!

There are several more articles about nutrition and healthy eating at http://ThePainReliefCoach.com.  Just click the link and go to the Category tab on the right hand side and click it to open the list of categories.  Scroll down to the Nutrition category and click and the articles will come up.

And here are a few more tips from the doctor:

1. Women, buy men’s athletic shoes!  Men’s shoes have roomier toe boxes so your toes won’t be squashed.  No one will really notice, either.  (Pssst.  I’ll tell you a secret…I have done this for years!)

2.  And just because you USED to wear a size 6 doesn’t mean you STILL wear a 6.

The doctor said she had cured many cases of ‘arthritis’ in feet simply by telling her patient, “You don’t wear a size 6 anymore; now you wear a size 10!”

The bigger shoe created more comfort and got rid of foot pain naturally.

1.  Massage.  If you have massage does your massage therapist massage, warm and loosen the muscles on the front of your chest and arms and abdomen?  Does she or he or has anyone checked to see whether you have flat arches on your feet?  Did you know that flat feet can cause neck pain?

2.  Posture corrections.  Neck muscles can pull your head forward.  I hope your massage therapist works on the muscles in the front of your neck and on the sides of your neck and not just in the back?  Do you sit and stand in a good, neutral upright position or is your head ‘forward’?  You can tell if you have a forward-head posture if you always catch your reflection in the mirror or a window with your head leading the parade.

3.  Ice or cold therapy.  Cold therapy is excellent for necks.  It works well for both nerves and muscles.  Go to the right hand side of this page to the Categories.  There is a category for ice and heat and there are articles there that will explain more.

4.  Strengthen your back from knees to head.  Maybe an exercise specialist could help you get your head
back where it belongs (if this is the case) by helping you strengthen the muscles of your upper back and the back of your neck.  Or go to http://SimpleStrengthening.com to find articles about how to do this yourself.

5.  Create long muscles in front.  Your goal is to create long muscles in the front of your body and stronger, shorter muscles in the back (except for your calves; they should be soft.)

6.  Stretch.  Stretch the front of body muscles–arms, legs and torso.  Make them loooong.  That means arms and legs move behind you (arms up and back.)  Neck and upper back stiffness and pain can actually come from your lower
body and the muscles in the front of the body.

7.  Use a different pillow.  Ideally you are sleeping on your back and using a neck roll.  Maybe you need a smaller neck roll?  If your neck roll is too firm or large it will aggravate your neck.  I make my own neck rolls from bats of fiberfill.  They are easy to cut to size and readjust as needed.  Just roll into a pillow case.  And they don’t cost much.

8.  Change your position:  Sometimes I find that only sleeping on my back can be straining on the neck muscles for me, too, so sometimes I prop my head carefully to keep my neck in line and sleep on my side.  In my case, that also means propping my ribcage with a thin pillow to keep my spine straight and another pillow between my knees.

Here is the link to several other articles I wrote (CLICK HERE) to help you get rid of your stiff neck or neck pain naturally.

1.  Driving.  Most car seats tilt back too far or have headrests that push your head forward.  Either of these will strain the muscles that cause tension headaches.

2.  Couches (sofas) and chairs that have too much backward lean.

3.  Slouching or sitting on your tailbone with a rounded back.  Slouching or leaning sideways will do it, too.

4.  Forward head posture or holding your head in front of your body.

What’s the solution?

1.  Padding the back of your car seat so you can sit more upright or farther away from the headrest.

2.  Getting a strong back, including the muscles in the back of your neck, and improving your posture.

3.  Sitting ‘up’ straighter.

4.  Lifting your chest so your head can move back more over your body where it is supposed to be and getting a strong back helps, too.

If you take action, you can start to be rid of your headaches.  I wrote a lot of articles at http://SimpleStrengthening.com that will help you improve your posture and get rid of your muscle tension headaches. 

Sometimes when you have pain or discomfort you think, “I’m getting old.”

Or maybe you (or your doctor) says, “It’s arthritis.”

Well, maybe it’s arthritis.  Maybe not.  But it’s probably muscles and muscles are fixable.

Joint pain is often really muscle pain.  We think it’s joint pain because that’s where we feel it.  But here’s the cool thing:  When you ‘release’ or relax the muscles that cross over the joint, the pain goes away.

When you skin your knee (as I did recently–again) you can watch it heal over the course of several days.  But when the pain is inside, you can’t see it heal.

But it can.

And it does.

Bodies heal all the time.

You have a smart body and it wants to be well.  Give it what it needs:

1.  Movement, gentle and often.

2.  Good nutrients and lots of water.

3.  Positive thoughts of wellness.

4.  Massage for your muscles.  You can do-it-yourself or have professional therapeutic massage.  Muscles love a good massage!  Massage relaxes muscles and helps them function properly.

Oh, by the way…George Burns said it’s okay to get older as long as you don’t get old.