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Four headaches, as if one weren't enough. Four bits of ancient Chinese wisdom, perhaps enough to help you cancel a headache.

Dull headaches are best treated with gentle but deep pressure. Sharp headaches are best treated with quick movements that move away from the head.

There are really about seventeen different headaches described in Chinese medicine. They're described in relation to the five elements or the zang-fu patterns (energetic influences of your body's organs). Let's stick to the four most common headaches, in the front, in the rear, in your temples, and less frequently, the top of your head.

Acupuncturist and shiatsu therapist Barbra Esher tells us, "The quality of the pain is going to give other information. For example, a dull ache indicates a deficiency condition. Sharp pain means there is an excess." Barbra teaches her shiatsu students that dull headaches are best treated with gentle but deep pressure. Sharp headaches are best treated with quick movements that move away from the head.

Pain In The Rear (of your head)
The horseshoe-shaped ridge at the base of your skull called the occiput is the center of the Tai Yang headache. It often also involves stiffness of the back and neck. It can literally drive you forward like someone whacked you in the back of the head. Chronic headaches here often come from exhausting your energy. Acute headaches are usually from bothersome external influences. The energy meridians involved in this headache have to do with sorting problems out, and things that make you anxious (your worst fears come true). It's what most people would call a stress headache. Pressing locally, as well as on the edge of your hand below the pinky, and the outer side of your Achilles tendon can help pull this headache out.

Tear Your Hair Out
One time or another you've seen someone put both their hands on the sides of their head and groan, probably even wobble side-to-side or shake their head. The temporal headache is the Shao Yang headache. These headaches are usually sharp or throbbing. Often they are inspired by being inflexible or angry. They may even turn into migraines. The local place to press is directly above the top of your ear. One of the most useful places to press when trying to subdue this headache is actually on the top of your foot, way up between the bones that go to your fourth and fifth toe. I like the name of this point, "Foot overlooking tears." As this headache is associated with burnout, the point name seems to indicate that if you're ready to let go, your headache will go too.

A Dim View
When you feel heavy and muzzy, can't concentrate, and your forehead aches, you have a Yang Ming headache. Usually this area is a center for brightness. This headache comes with quite a dim feeling, perhaps even nauseating. That should be a clue that this headache often comes from your stomach. Sharp pain can sometimes be associated with hunger, and dull pain indigestion. These headaches can be difficult to clear up quickly because the inherent heavy, damp feeling does not like to move. This is the one time you can actually use the famous headache point in the web between your thumb and forefinger. It doesn't work for any other kind of headache, although it does work for other stuff. My favorite point though is another one right on top of the foot, directly in the center of the bend where your foot becomes your leg. You may find that it sucks that gooey feeling right out of your aching head. Reaching this point is easier if you are sitting. If you've ever crossed your ankles under your chair, you've probably pressed this point.

Scraping The Bottom (or in this case the top)
Not as common, but usually quite unpleasant is the headache that resides in the top of your head, the Jue Yin headache. I think of this headache like a cartoon thermometer. Either it's so hot (energetic) that it feels like bursting, or so empty that it could cave in. It is definitely a headache of the extremes. If you've got more of a hollow headache here, try pressing on the vertex of your head, where the baby's soft spot used to be. You can find this by making a crescent with each thumb and forefinger, resting your thumb at the top of your ear, and where your index fingers meet on the top of your head is the point you're looking for. If your head feels more like it is bursting, slouch back in your chair, kick off your shoes, and rest the heel of one foot in the dimple between your big toe and second toe. That's a point to clear your head.

The nice thing about some of these foot points is that you can find ways to press them under your desk at work, just by slipping off your shoes, and no one has to see you holding your head and grimacing. If you've never been to see a physical therapist or massage therapist, there's a little trick about lots of tension in your head. They rub your feet. They may not know about the headache points, but they do know that when you release the tension in someone's feet, the tension in their scalp and head also decreases.

Now you may have some additional insight to where your headaches are coming from, so you might be able to avoid or anticipate them. But you also have a few new tools you can try the next time you have a headache.