Got a Headache? Painkillers Are NOT the Solution!

Say you had a stressful day at work, didn't get enough sleep the night before and as a result you've got a bad headache. What do you do? It's easy! You take good old Tylenol or other over-the-counter medicine. And it helps! No more headache, the world is bright again.

The next day you wake up with the headache again. This time your headache is tolerable but dull and constant. It's a good thing you bought that medicine yesterday. Better take it before headache gets more painful. If you take two pills instead of one it might even work faster. Sounds like a logical thing to do, right?

Wrong. All you did is blocked pain receptors that are involved in transmitting signals between brain cells. That means the headache is still there, your brain just stopped getting signals about it. Instead of treating the cause you are treating the symptoms.

In addition wildly known over-the-counter medicine like Tylenol and Advil can be really harmful if misused. I was shocked to find out that only 16% of people read the label completely. Forty four percent of people (and that's hundreds of millions) read the label and knowingly exceed the recommended dose. Are you one of those people?

If you experience headache more than two times a day, you've got a problem. Popping painkillers like M&M's may only lead to rebound headaches. When you take the same medicine for the long period of time your body becomes addicted to it. What happens when medicine wears off? You get an even stronger headache, which forces you to take more medicine...and more medicine...and more medicine...It's a vicious circle.

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