Stress, anxiety, headaches, or drowsiness — everyone has their fair share of unpleasant moments. But the solution to these is pretty simple — an ear massage! It’s a truly relaxing nerve sensation that can free your mind from problems and physical discomfort. And the best part about it is that it can be done anywhere, anytime, quickly and easily.

Bright Side is always in search of interesting and beneficial practices for our readers. And this time, we are happy to tell you about this hidden collection of massages. At the end of the article, we have included a self-massage guide, so take notes!

Pain in your muscles gets reduced.

An experiment was conducted to test and see if an ear massage could help to reduce pain among people with chronic lower back pain. And the results showed that this simple procedure is an effective way to decrease discomfort.

Gently pulling and rubbing different areas of your ears, especially your lobes, stimulates a lot of nerve endings, and they can help your brain to release endorphins. These hormones are known to make us feel good and help to relieve pain. Also, they can improve your blood circulation too. Some studies even showed that, thanks to these simple massaging actions, people were able to better manage their physical pain, and their pain threshold even increased.

Your stress and anxiety levels decrease.

Another small study was conducted among patients during a period of in vitro fertilization. Results proved that ear massage is a good thing to do in this kind of stressful situation. Massage the heavenly gate point of your ear with slow circular motions if you feel stressed out, panicked, restless, fatigued, or irritated. This point is situated in the upper shell of your ear, at the part that feels like a triangle-shaped hollow.

Your headaches and migraines can be noticeably relieved.

While pain𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ers can have some serious and potentially destructive effects on your body and your health, ear stimulation is generally harmless. You can even combine it with some more natural remedies like peppermint tea for a better effect.

You will be able to lose weight faster.

Apart from exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy diet, you can also start rubbing different points on your ears daily. It turns out that, combined with other necessary routines, massaging might promote quicker weight loss. After you reach your goal, make sure you continue performing it to maintain your weight and stay healthy.

It can be helpful for fighting insomnia.

Since ear stimulation has a relaxing effect, you can do it before bedtime to calm yourself down and loosen up. Though this procedure alone won’t help you to eliminate insomnia completely, it can help you to relax, which is necessary for a good sleep. Also, you can use it in addition to other treatments that you already use.

It gives you an energy boost.

You might forget about using your morning coffee to wake yourself up. Instead, you can try rubbing your ears a bit more intensely. Stimulating the nerve endings of your ears can activate certain brain centers and make fatigue fade away. You can do it during the day as well, when you feel that your tiredness is getting out of control and your energy level is low.

Bonus: How to perform an ear massage on yourself

Try these moves:

• Gently pull the top of your ear, holding it with your thumb and index finger. Slowly rub your fingers back and forth while making your way to the outer edge of your ear.
• Stroke the crease behind your ear with downward movements. You can also try to trace the outlines and curves of your auricle — pinch the lobe with your fingers and gently move up the ear.
• Pull the earlobe away from your head. Pinch the lobe between your fingers again and make circular movements with them, slowly kneading the lobe.
• Pull the skin behind your ear too and move down the outline of the ear. You can do this until your fingers reach your jawline.
• Place your palm over your ear so it’s completely covered. Press onto your ear and slide your palm down to make the top part of your auricle curl.
• Cover the auricle with your palm again and start making circular movements with your hand.

What other massaging techniques do you know of? Let’s share our experience in the comments!