Cozy Cures For Housewife Headache

“Making beds, getting meals, acting as family chauffeur — having to do the same dull, tiresome work day after day — is a mild form of torture. These boring yet necessary tasks can bring on nervous tension, fatigue and what is now known as ‘housewife headache.”
Back in the middle of the last century those darling (M)ad-men came up with a really rather wonderful way to convince women across the land that Anacin, a mild pain reliever, was the cure for the “mild form of torture” that is housework by inventing and offering medication for the “housewifes headache”…
Oh my. There’s a barrel of worms if ever there was one. Housework is torture?? Housewives need medication just to get the boring but necessary tasks that define their days? Heck, let’s not even  go there…
And yet I don’t know about you but just occasionally I suffer from a good old-fashioned housewives headache  myself and no amount of healthy doses of the paracetamol I would rather avoid will shift it unless I award myself an afternoon out of my daily life and let a little extreme self-care sooth the pounding away…

So here it is dear Housekeepers, my seven point, half-hour plan for banishing housewife’s headache.

1. Dim the lights as low as you can. Pull the blinds, close the curtains and never mind if it is 11.00 o’clock in the morning and the neighbours will suspect the worst, do it anyway. When you have a headache, dark soothes your mind like the stroke of your Mother’s hand across your forehead, so if at all possible, switch off all artificial light, and block out the sun.
2. Take your bra off (the curtains are closed remember??), remove any jewellery, let your hair down and change into loose fitting jimmy-jams, then prepare a large cup of lemon-balm tea with a spoonful of honey and sip it slowly. Lemon-balm is a herb that has long been associated with relieving nervous tension and even if you struggle to enjoy herbal teas, this one is tolerable as it isn’t terribly pungent and is in fact gently delicious…
3. Now fill a deep bowl with water to a bearable hot temperature, then add five drops of both lavender and ginger oil and soak your hands for three to five minutes to regulate the circulation problems often associated with headaches and make yourself feel thoroughly pampered as a blissful bonus.
4. Next add a few drops of lavender oil to a spoonful of almond, jojoba or olive oil and massage it into your temples for a few minutes then prepare another cup of warm water to sip in order to keep hydrating your tired old body.
5. Pop the cosiest socks you can find on to your feet, and put a blanket and a pillow on the floor…
6. Soak a flannel in ice cold water, sprinkle it with peppermint oil and wring it out so it doesn’t drip when you lie down on the blanket with your legs up flat against the wall (a well known yoga cure-all) and the flannel pressed across your forehead and eyes.
7. And relax. Lie as still as you can for ten minutes, then get up and stretch and if you can, crawl under your eider-down and have yourself a tiny little restorative nap before spending the rest of the afternoon watching an old movie, nibbling almonds because they contain mild pain relieving properties and feeling thoroughly sorry for yourself just because I said you can…

Anacin, schmamacin!

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