Seizures refer to uncontrolled and abnormal body movement arising from specific brain changes. Most people experience heightened electrical activity in the brain, followed by seizure attacks. While the condition may occur due to multiple risk factors, you can prevent it through some effective techniques.
It could be anything, ranging from changes in your lifestyle to avoiding substance abuse. You can tackle seizures and related conditions with voluntary modifications in your daily life and proper stress management. Read on to find the ideal tips and tricks that help prevent seizures.
What Is Seizure?
Neurological disorders occur due to abnormal physiological pathways in your brain. One such condition, i.e., seizure, arises from abnormal electrical firing in your neuronal pathways or brain. Depending on the type of seizure disorder, it may cause strange behavior, loss of consciousness, or other symptoms. Also, people often experience jerking of hands and legs whenever a seizure attack comes.
Multiple risk factors can lead to seizures in the long run. Some common causes of seizures are head injury, congenital disabilities, brain infections, and brain tumors. Apart from this, excessive alcohol, lack of sleep, and a highly stressful lifestyle may trigger seizures.
Symptoms & Types Of Seizures
When identifying a seizure attack, you must pay attention to the symptoms. Seizure attack manifests in uncontrolled body movements, especially the hands and legs. Also, it can lead to loss of consciousness, unresponsiveness, and numbness or tingling sensations.
Some people often report experiencing an aura in odd smells, deja vu, or even visual disturbances. Furthermore, the symptoms depend upon the type of seizure attack and the severity of it.
Some common types of seizures can be tonic-clonic, absence, focal onset, and unknown onset. Such symptoms and types of seizures may help properly manage and prevent recurrent attacks.
Ways To Prevent Seizures
Did you know that seizures are amenable to prevention through effective and consistent changes in your daily life? When dealing with seizures, you must work on your lifestyle and habits.
1. Avoid Alcohol & Substance Abuse
There’s no doubt about the fact that excessive alcohol consumption is harmful to your health. But did you know that people with seizure disorders should give up alcohol consumption right away? Drinking alcohol may interfere with your brain signals and stimulate the electrical activity in your brain. Furthermore, it can contribute to recurrent seizures in the long run.
Another factor, i.e., substance abuse, can lead to seizure or amplify its severity. This is due to the effect of specific drugs on your heart as well as brain activity. You might want to avoid alcohol or substance abuse to manage seizures properly. However, some medicinal drugs like weed can be beneficial for seizure-like conditions.
Cannabinoids in medical marijuana can slow down electrical activity in your brain and may control seizures. That being said, you must try to consume the drug with caution and find out ways on how to hide weed smell for better utilization.
2. Practice Stress Management
Another common trigger behind seizures is excessive stress or poor mental health. A stressful lifestyle for personal or professional reasons may alter your brain activity. Further, it often disturbs the level of neurotransmitters and chemicals that deal with electrical activity in your brain.
Hence, it predisposes you to seizures and related brain conditions up to a great extent. You must practice relaxation, meditation, and self-care to deal with daily stressors. Also, exercise well and keep your body moving for that much-needed endorphin surge.
3. Follow Consistent Dietary Habits
Dietary factors play an essential role in your life as well as in your brain health. Fasting for a prolonged duration may trigger or increase the severity of seizure attacks. Also, hypoglycemic states can act as a risk factor for seizure, especially in the case of diabetic individuals.
You must adhere to a clean, healthy, and consistent dietary plan. Not only will it maintain your physical health, but it also lowers the incidence of seizures.
4. Stay Away From Head Injuries
One of the predisposing factors to seizure disorder is injuries, particularly head injuries. Most seizure disorders arise from head injuries and may be single or recurrent seizures. As a result of head injury, the seizure may occur within a few hours or months after the incident.
You may experience an attack post-injury if you have epilepsy. Hence, protecting your head from possible injuries and damage is crucial. Try wearing a helmet while cycling, playing any sport, or even skating. On top of this, specific stability exercises can help prevent injuries and maintain an ideal posture.
5. Avoid Contrasting Lights
Are you aware of the ability of flashing lights to trigger a seizure attack? Contrasting lights can be yet another trigger for your seizure disorder. This is because of photosensitive epilepsy in most people experiencing seizure attacks. Even minor exposure to contrasting lights can initiate an attack in such cases.
It’s crucial to avoid such lights and geometric patterns that can act as a stressor. Consider also practicing caution while playing video games with flashing graphic features. If you happen to enter a similar situation, even after practicing utmost caution, try to cover your eyes for some time.
6. Never Ignore Fever Episodes
Most people experience a seizure after a febrile episode of over 101 degrees. Whenever you experience a fever while suffering from a seizure disorder, try not to overlook it. A febrile episode may trigger or increase the severity of a seizure up to a great extent.
Increasing body temperature can be a stressor, especially for children. Hence, paying attention to your body temperature and maintaining temperature charting is crucial. Not only will it help tackle the fever episodes, but it also prevents severe seizure attacks.
Bottom Line
Epileptic conditions may be quite challenging to deal with due to poor prognosis and management. However, if you experience a seizure attack, you should adapt to specific management techniques. It revolves around changes in your lifestyle, diet, and certain pathological conditions that you experience. Start with consuming your meals consistently and healthily.
Further, it’s essential to identify and avoid possible triggers in your daily life. Some common triggers of seizures are exposure to contrasting lights and a high-grade fever episode. Besides this, you must pay attention to head injuries and avoid them as much as possible. Practicing stress management is another crucial aspect to prevent and manage seizure attacks.
