Noise – from music to jackhammers – all sounds are a painful addition to the sufferer’s pounding headache. Usually, a migraine sufferer needs a soundless room to begin to recover.
(Noise is sound that your body perceives as unpleasant, unhealthy.)
Stimulation of any kind of sound to the inflamed nerves in your skull is not just unpleasant, it causes very real physical pain, not only in your head, but also radiating to the nape of your neck, your shoulders, your back and soreness in the rest of your body.
During a migraine attack, your senses are overactive. The outside noise is over and above the sound that your own body makes internally, from what seems to be blood rushing in your veins to the throbbing pulse of pain, as each pulse of blood flow creates a sound that your skullbone and the bones of the inner ear perceive as too loud, as intolerable noise.
One countermeasure that will raise your tolerance threshold is to learn to change your focus. Have you ever heard a piece of music that really reaches you, that you listen to with every fiber of your being, that captures your attention to such a degree that you don’t hear any other sounds and are unaware of anything else around you? That’s the degree of concentration that you can achieve by certain exercises and practices that will allow you to become deaf to any unpleasant sound.
You’d be surprised what you can tune out – I once went out for the count while stretched out on the living room carpet, my ear next to the stereo loudspeaker blaring Beethoven’s Third Symphony “Eroica” full blast. If you want to, you CAN ignore something you choose.
If the pain from a migraine lights up your brain like fireworks, you can learn to channel those fireworks into a laser focus on “not” hearing whatever you choose to eliminate from sensory perception.
Want to feel total serenity, an ineffable calm? First, you need to feel it in order to follow the map to your destination.
Several ways spring to mind:
Remember that sound is perceived via the ear canal and the skull bones to varying degrees – so anything over and above earplugs for the ear canal are also effective.
– regular practice of meditation. Remember the joke about the only exercise you get is jumping to conclusions? You can exercise or practice reaching the calm of meditation. The ideal, profound meditation state, quickly reached within a few minutes, can take time to achieve, but the journey there is immensely pleasant and entertaining. I remember taking a free meditation class on silent meditation taught in a Benedictine priory. During the Q&A session that followed the 25-minute practice, the student asked the instructor how long it would take before he could achieve a perfect meditation? “I don’t know,” replied the Prior, “I’ve been practicing for 20 years… .” You really do get very good at it, especially if it becomes part of your routine. Your brain craves the total rest.
– relaxation exercises. Either research the “List of relaxation methods” or get a book from the library and choose from the menu of suggestions. Pick the one that appeals to you the best – we do not all have the same reaction to stimuli or their reverse. Try another. Find humor in quirky reactions or failures – the humor is part of the healing.
– made-to-measure prescription earplugs – there are such things, and since they come with prescriptions from an ENT specialist, you may be covered by insurance (bonus!).
– gadgets. Support your local engineer inventors – try one or more noise-canceling devices. (Internet search: “Noise canceling devices”) It’s amazing what’s out there in the marketplace. If one piece of equipment begins to work, then becomes less efficient, set it aside temporarily and try the next device – and so on. Achieving significant pain relief is a journey – sometimes short, sometimes a longer one. Keep trying!
– turn your bedroom into a noise-canceling haven – and remember to make sure there is fresh air flow that reaches you so you always get enough oxygen:
– install soundproof curtains
– foam ribbons around your windows or acoustic foam or rubber inserts or linings to muffle outside sound
– noise cancellation machines
There is a world of solutions out there. One of the benefits of looking for a solution is that while your mind is engaged in finding and trying out a new discovery, your thoughts may be momentarily distracted from the pain. That has a very practical benefit: instead of generating cortisol, the stress hormone, your system emits endorphins and other beneficial hormones. You are, in effect, reversing the tide…
