Experiencing Stress and Pain? Resistance is Futile

Does your life seem fraught with major frustration leading to stress and pain? When you sense an impending headache, does it panic you, or do you become afraid? Are you at a point where it seems you can no longer live a normal life because everything that comes along seems to produce a migraine?

The more we resist something, the more entrenched it becomes. The minute we vow to ourselves that we won’t do a certain thing, or allow ourselves a certain thought pattern, it is almost as if whatever that “certain thing” takes on a life of its own and nearly becomes entrenched.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna, the Divine, stops time to offer words of strength to his mortal friend, Arjuna, as he stands ready to fight a seemingly unbeatable foe. “My friend,” Krishna says, “Resist what resists in you. Become yourself.” What great words for anyone who wants victory over something, and often migraines can feel like an unbeatable foe. The greatest health comes from being “in the flow.”

We may be survivors, little rebels, and pride ourselves on going “against the flow.” Anything else seems defeatist, apathetic, all those things we’ve learned to abhor. But when that philosophy permeates us to the core, we can set ourselves up for ill health. That seems strange. All around us we hear the battle cry – Battle cancer! Beat back dementia! Fend off the toxins! We surely feel the same way about our headaches, giving them a punch with the abortive meds, only to watch them regroup and attack again and again.

What if you stopped feeling that your battles were heroic and necessary? What if you decided neither to give up nor to battle? What if you tried a radically different approach? You know how the saying goes, “The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results,” and yet so often, we do.

Being “in the flow” means being in the flow of life, working with our life force, our chi.  Here are some great suggestions for getting into the flow. Before you decide you don’t have “time” to do any of these things, ask yourself if you have time to continue to allow your migraines to disrupt your entire life.

1)   Start a preventive regimen.  Avoid your migraine triggers when possible and never underestimate the power of nutrition. Magnesium, riboflavin and the herb feverfew have all been proven in scientific studies to nutritionally benefit migraine sufferers.   If you are already taking migraine medications, you can continue to take them while you begin your nutritional supplement regimen.  Although many people experience positive results in under a month, it can take up to 90 days to build blood levels for maximum effectiveness and beneficial results.

2)   Take Tai Chi classes. Daily exercise is a given for a healthy lifestyle, and tai chi can serve as exercise as well as training your chi. Check your local directories to find Tai Chi classes, or consider the in-home Tai Cheng instruction or click here for an online option. Whether you take Tai Chi classes or not, get some kind of concerted exercise every single day.  Our bodies were not designed to do well without it.  Exercise both with weight for resistance and aerobically. For your aerobic exercise, spend 90 seconds at a moderate pace and then increase to a very challenging pace for 30 seconds.  Work up to doing this cycle 6-8 times, 3 days a week, and be persistent with it.

3)  Get acupuncture.  Acupuncture has been a proven method of health treatment for millennia, again, working with your chi, your life force to keep it flowing. If you are blocked, acupuncture can return you to a natural flow. Acupuncture doesn’t have to be an expensive alternative. There are growing numbers of community acupuncture clinics around the nation. To find a clinic near you, click here.

4)   Learn to Tap.  The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT),  also known as tapping, can be immensely effective in warding off impending headaches or in dealing with headaches in progress.  www.tappingsolution.com

5)   Choose optimal nutrition. Do a little Googling and find an optimal diet for yourself. If you are listening to your body, and you strongly suspect you have food allergy triggers, instead of trying to just eliminate the triggers, go for a whole new regimen: find an optimal diet that will work for you and switch.

These types of lifestyle changes can make a huge difference in the life of a migraineur by improving quality of life without the feeling of consistently being in a battle.