How to Kill a Headache With Cayenne. Experience a headache and you know how quickly one can ruin your day. Drugs help, but many can have long-lasting side effects that make you drowsy or feel worse in some other way. Switch to an all-natural approach that is just as effective, but comes from your spice rack, instead of your medicine cabinet.
Use capsaicin, the compound found in cayenne, which provides the heat, to correct your headache. By cutting off the sensors in your brain, cayenne will get rid of your discomfort.
Add a ¼ teaspoon of cayenne powder in approximately 4 ounces of warm water. This will dilute the mixture enough that you don't experience too much discomfort from the heat of the capsaicin.
Dunk a cotton swab or Q-tip in the solution and stir it around, fully coating the cotton.
Apply the moist cotton swab to the inside of your nostrils, lightly gliding it over the inside. Stop when you can really smell and feel the heat being given off by the cayenne.
Sit down and relax, the mixture will burn, which tells you it is working. Though the initial reaction to this may be unpleasant, it is effective and safe to kill a headache with cayenne.
Recover from the heat in your nose and you will find that you have also recovered from your nasty headache.