Besides migraines, are you overweight too? Great news: my experience has been that finding significant pain relief from migraines is much easier and works more quickly for me than getting rid of excess weight.
Getting rid of excess weight in a healthy manner is a major step in finding significant migraine pain relief—if only because weight loss leads to improved mental and physical condition and strengthening of one’s immune system.
As I discovered – migraines and hypertension – are closely related. Both affect blood circulation.
I was lucky enough to participate in a hospital study conducted by Doctor Patel. The latter wanted to know the impact of biofeedback on two categories of patients: hypertensives and migraine sufferers. Dr. Patel was teaching biofeedback techniques, which draw on ancient Indian wisdom in strengthening the walls of my arteries and redistributing my blood circulation.
One cause of migraines is that arteries running parallel to the nerves in part of the skull swell with blood that stays there too long. Engorged arteries press against the nerves, and there are insufficient soft tissues around the skullbone to absorb this swelling. It would seem that redirecting the excess blood elsewhere in the body would help reduce pressure on the nerves.
Are you under the impression you have insufficient control over blood circulation – part of your autonomous system? I learned that Indian holy men practice wrapping themselves in water-drenched sheets and then redistribute the blood flow elsewhere, to their extremities and their body periphery. The increased warmth to those areas is enough to dry the sheets in a very short time. Talk about alternative energy!
Doctor Patel was teaching me these exercises in controlling my blood flow. Practice makes perfect. My formerly cold forearms and legs beneath the knees warmed up considerably. Less congested arteries in my head = significantly reduced migraine pain.
Excess weight contributes to high blood pressure. Hypertension is nicknamed The Silent Killer. Well, maybe hypertension is not so much silent as rather, it whispers. You would do well to listen to that whisper.
Hypertension may be more immediately life-threatening than migraines. High blood pressure puts our circulatory system at a significant disadvantage. In my own experience, high blood pressure was thankfully not noticeably painful at first, but I did begin to feel ill at ease and uncomfortable enough to look for ways to lower my high blood pressure.
I was lucky: my migraines HURT. Turn your pain into a powerful motivator to take action to improve your health. By tending to my migraine condition, I was automatically improving my hypertension condition.
Suffering from migraines is a bit like having a messy house: where do you start with the cleanup? Where’s the biggest mess? You have to start somewhere. Anything you do will be an improvement. It may not result in an immediate wish come true – a spotlessly clean house, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Unless you have a doctor standing at your side at every moment telling you exactly what system needs improving at that very moment to find maximum pain relief for migraines, then just do the first thing that comes to mind. Any way you look at it – working on improving any aspect of your health will be beneficial to you. Then try something else.
Let me tell you a secret: if you’ve been suffering from migraines for some years, I’m willing to bet that’s not the only thing that’s off kilter in your body that needs work. The migraines are just the most painful, the most obvious condition that screams the loudest and demands the most urgent attention.
The advantage to doing anything to improve your health is that everything you are now doing is sensitizing you to how you feel. This healthy self-absorption is causing you to learn to listen better to your body.
