Nausea, throbbing pain, blackouts … all symptoms I endured at the hands of chronic migraine. I suffered from chronic pain for over 15 years and the pain never let up on me, not once. At its worse, when I was 16, I was completely dependent on opioids. I couldn’t go three days without taking some kind of pain killer because my body couldn’t go that long without falling victim to a migraine. I knew that I had to find an alternative way to deal with the pain my body felt. Below is a list of ways to conquer chronic pain without taking opiates or painkillers.
Keep a journal
Keeping a journal of your migraines can assist in discovering why your migraines occur. If you know why your migraines or headaches are occurring, you can easily make changes in your life to avoid the pain. Things to consider recording in your journal are: the date the migraine occurred, how much sleep you got the night before, what you ate that day, how active you were, etc.
Yoga
Just 20 minutes a day of calming stretches and mindful breathing can improve migraine frequency immensly. Yoga can be done in a studio or in the comfort of your own home. This practice cultivates mental awareness, strength, and endurance, all of which are crucial to conquering migraines. Yoga, in my experience, works so well because of its ability to make an individual aware of their own being. When you can notice your body subconsciously, you can improve bad habits, such as posture, that may be causing your migraines.
Guided Imagery
My psychology teacher introduced me to guided imagery when I was 16 and after practicing it for 30 minutes a day, every day, for three months, I had managed to cut my migraine days in half. This practice is effective in treating migraines while they are occurring. Guided imagery is a lesser known practice that involves eliciting positive images in the mind to help eliminate stress and make you aware of your body. When the mind imagines a particular scenario, the body reacts to it as if it were really happening. This helps the body to release stress and ultimately conquer the migraine. The great thing about guided imagery is that it can be done in your bed as you fall asleep. Simply play a video such as this one as you fall asleep. Moreover, if you don’t have a migraine, it can still help you slip into a deep and calming sleep.
Become Mindful
The majority of migraines occur because of something that can easily be avoided such as eating a certain food. Becoming mindful of the world around you can help you to prevent migraines all together. Taking note of what goes on throughout your day can target the cause of your migraines. If you know the cause or your migraines, you can take precautions to avoid them altogether.
Exercise
Most migraines make me become completely incapacitated, which is something I absolutely cannot stand. The sensory sensitivity to light and sound prevented me from being able to do anything except for laying in my bed. As soon as I feel a migraine start to come on, I go running. Most people are able to sense when a migraine when a migraine is about to occur and as soon as this happens it is crucial to get up and get moving, even if it is just a walk around the block. Exercise releases endorphins which is the body’s natural painkiller. Exercise may not completely prevent the migraine, but it will help subsidize the pain.
When migraines occur, I’ll do anything to get the pain to go away. The medicines I was put on to conquer the pain, however, didn’t help in preventing the migraines and had numerous negative side effects. Within doing the alternative pain management strategies, myself and others across the globe are able to conquer their migraine pain naturally.
