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. 

Pain

The word 'pain' is very limited in the scope of its definition, describing an aspect of life that is avoided by most people. It is something we reluctantly endure when we must, and block out when we can with drugs. There is a lack of understanding because the majority of us dislike it, making it a core source of suffering. But pain is a sensation, like touch, taste, sight, smell and hearing. It is a message from ourselves to ourselves to communicate that something damaging is happening to us. It is a message, a loud and often aggressive one, that something is wrong. Therefore should we be blocking it out? If it is a message then maybe we should be listening and trying to understand the structure and meaning of the message, but we fight pain, are told to hide pain with drugs that we are sold in ever greater quantities and potencies. In doing this I believe we are stifling the communications systems of our bodies, and I believe, hampering our understanding of ourselves and slowing our recovery.

There is no limit to the different interpretations of pain, because everyone feels and interprets it differently, through different bodies and different minds, with different levels of tolerance and control over their reception, perception and reaction to this sense. Some people have undergone major surgery without anaesthetic. Many people induce pain upon themselves through various forms of self-mutilation as a form of ritual. Some people derive direct pleasure from pain. Some suffer pain but derive pleasure from their suffering. Some endure it to prove their worth to the tribe to which they belong. The categories are numerous, but the individual differences are endless. Pain is self-defined.

When we are children our automatic reaction to pain is to scream or cry. Perhaps this is an evolutionary defense mechanism to startle an attacker, or perhaps to alert a parent that their offspring is in danger. Maybe it is a vocal amplification of the sensory message we are experiencing. Whatever it is, we learn to tolerate it as we get older. A bang on the knee no longer yields sobbing floods of tears as we mature. A grazed elbow no longer puts us in as much distress as it used to. Once we grow up and realise that a grazed knee is not any kind of real danger to us, we brush it off and carry on with our day, laughing about it. What has changed here; the message, or our perception and reaction to the message? Think to yourself; does a childhood memory of the pain from a minor injury seem any different to the pain you feel from a similar injury today? I see no difference. It is only my experience that has changed.

So experience gives us memory and knowledge of pain, knowledge which allows us to react to it suitably. I have suffered from migraines for some time. Experience has taught me that I cannot continue what I am doing when I experience this pain. I must move away from bright light and loud noise and concentrate all of my attention upon my head until the migraine is relieved. The pain used to sometimes come on in waves, and the waves could result in my body tensing up, which I learned made the pain worse, so I learned to relax. By acknowledging the pain I found ways to receive it better. This did not make it any less unpleasant. More interesting perhaps, but I felt no desire to continue feeling such a sensation, so I resolved to find out what was the cause of my suffering. This led me to try stopping drinking tea, coffee and alcohol, of which I found coffee to be the cause. If I had simply blocked the pain out with drugs I would still be suffering, probably more so than I was, and causing myself further damage through continued consumption of painkillers and caffinated drinks. Anyways I think you get the point. This is an old post I am polishing off so I won't go on much further. I will end by recommending anyone in pain to acknowledge the message your body is sending you before drowning it out wih drugs. Your body is talking to you. LISTEN!