2014-05-15

Headache?

Everywhere I go I see adverts asking me if my work is blighted by headaches. They show me pictures of suffering faces, getting sequentially happier as the advertised pills take effect. They say things like 'for lives bigger than pain', and 'to help you get on wih your busy life, faster'.

I don't know where to start with this one. I guess I'll  address the advertiser directly:

"No, my work is not blighted by headaches. It used to be though. Until fairly recently, for a period of 5 years or so, I suffered from terrible migraines. When they hit me there was no way to deal with the pain but to find a dark quiet place, wrap my arms around my face to keep out the light, and sit it out until the pain subsided. I studied the pain, listened to it, trying to understand the message that my body was sending me. That was an interesting experience. Pain is completely different if you look at it from a completely different perspective. After much deliberation and painful study I finally translated the message. It was a simple one: 'something is wrong'. I went to the doctors. I remember thinking I might have a brain tumour or something equally horrendous. It would be understandable after the years of abuse I had subjected my body to. Perhaps even deserved. I sat down in the doctor's chair and told him what was wrong. He didn't ask me about my diet. He didn't ask me if I drank water regularly. He didn't ask me any of the questions I thought would be simple common sense to ask. No, he asked me whether I was taking painkillers. I was pretty disappointed in him and responded that I avoid taking them as much as possible, as they do not deal with the cause, only the symptoms, that I wasn't getting headaches previously, I am now, so something has changed. His uninterested expression told me I was not going to get anything useful from him. He said that I should start taking painkillers, and if the headaches persisted to come back. I was disgusted. I left feeling disillusioned but determined to do something to try and stop the headaches. Over the next few weeks I stopped drinking alcohol, tea and coffee, and resolved to drink lots of water. My migraines stopped. Over the following year or so I went backwards and forwards, cutting out this or that and narrowed it down to the coffee. When I drank coffee, I got migraines. When I didn't, I didn't. I tried cutting down to just one coffee in the morning and water the rest of the day but my migraines returned, so I cut it out completely. I was afraid of doing this, as I, like millions of others, was psychologically addicted to coffee. I did not like the uncomfortable, edgy buzz that it gave me, but after years of drinking coffee all day every day I had adopted this illusion that if I didn't drink coffee I would be tired and lethargic all the time. The opposite was the truth. I slept better, I was more relaxed, and thanks to my replacing my caffeinated drinks with water I was now well hydrated all the time, and generally felt better than I had in a while." 

"So, in summary, no, I am not blighted by headaches. No, I will not buy your product which masks the damage I do to myself in the course of modern life. No, I will not stick my headache in the sand and pretend it's not there. I will listen to my pain, try to understand its message; why it is there; then I will adjust my lifestyle to remove whatever is causing my suffering. But I really appreciate your concern, and I am able to get on with my busy life, faster, now that I have stopped drinking that thick black liquid we call coffee and eating pills to mask the damage they were causing me."

Pain is a message. It is a message from your body to you. Try listening to it instead of blocking it out. It may tell you something useful. 

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