A warm foot bath. Soaking your feet in warm water may seem counter-intuitive to helping with migraine pain. But from a relaxation perspective, Lewis says, it can sometimes do the trick for quelling head pain by taking your mind off it.

Dimmed lights. Sensitivity to light, or photophobia, is a common symptom for many people who wrestle with migraine pain. Simply relaxing in a low-light room can be helpful, straightforward advice, confirmed in a recent French study that demonstrated how high-light exposure can worsen the symptoms of an ongoing migraine, while lower light helps relieve them.

Restorative sleep. Not getting a good night’s sleep is tied to many health problems, including repeated headaches.

“Maintaining a good and consistent sleeping pattern is helpful,” says Lewis. “I can guarantee myself a nasty headache just by going to sleep too late, even when I sleep in the next day.”

These quick tricks should work for the occasional pounding head. But if you’re constantly plagued by headache pain, and ginger or your grandmother’s home remedy doesn’t work, Dr. Lewis suggests a visit to a headache specialist.