4 Natural Remedies For Nausea (Other Than Throwing Up), Including Peppermint And Pressure Points
When you are sick and nauseated, sometimes the only way to cure it is to vomit — if you ate something that is not sitting well and has to come up, then it just has to come up. But for the other times nausea hits, whether through motion sickness, pregnancy, overeating or a disgusting stench, you could try one of these natural remedies to flip your stomach back into place.
Ginger
This plant has been used to aid digestion, as well as treat colds and other illnesses, for thousands of years, and while there are studies that do not find a medicinal benefit to ginger, others have shown it is better at treating nausea than a placebo. In other words, your mother wasn't wrong to give you ginger ale when you had a stomach ache or flu. Chewing candied ginger or sipping ginger tea may be helpful, too. The Mayo Clinic suggests using ginger in combination with anti-nausea medications when trying to ease the side effects of chemotherapy.
Read: 5 Natural Ways to Balance Your Hormones
Pushing on your wrist
Some studies have shown that applying pressure to certain places or nerves in your body can have a therapeutic effect, and in the case of nausea one trick is applying pressure to a certain point on your wrist. The Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has a video explaining how to use the acupressure technique, which involves finding a point between the two tendons on the inside of your arm, a certain distance below your wrist, and rubbing it in a circular motion.
Peppermint
This herb “has a calming and numbing effect,” according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. “The main ingredients in peppermint have … calming effects on the gastrointestinal tract” and relax muscles in your stomach.
In addition to being used to treat nausea, some also use it for headaches, other digestive issues or skin irritations. However, if your nausea is caused by acid reflux, the medical center warns, you should not treat it with peppermint — it relaxes the muscle that closes off the esophagus from the stomach, so stomach acid could more easily back up in these people who are already prone to such movement and worsen their heartburn and indigestion.
Ice
It’s just frozen water, but it can do a lot for nausea. Many groups recommend taking small sips of cold water; others say you should swallow small ice cubes or ice chips before they melt.
“Ice also helps prevent dehydration when vomiting or experiencing diarrhea,” the Science of Eating explains. “For nausea relief, let the ice melt in your mouth rather than chewing it, it can also be easier on your teeth.”
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