The Mindful Migraine

Each day, after I upload a post onto the blog, I can go ‘behind the veil’ as it were.  I can see how many people have been reading the individual posts, and the blog in general.  I don’t always check, because I often find myself becoming a little compulsive about it when I do; “Why is that post so popular?  Why not that one?  Should I be worried that not enough people are reading / commenting / liking” and so on.  I didn’t start blogging to play a numbers game, and I don’t want to lean too far into that potential version of myself. 

I’m here to help – one person or a dozen – it has already been a humbling experience.  I am incredibly grateful that anyone makes the time to read what I write (especially when I know how busy everyone is and how many of you are feeling so unwell) – so, to you dear reader – thank you!

What is apparent from the statistics when I do check, is that migraine knows no boundaries.  I’ve only been blogging for about 6 weeks now and already there have been readers visiting from so many places around the world (and don’t worry, I don’t know where you live, I just see a country name and national flag).

I can see that there are readers who live close to home, coming from Australia and New Zealand. 

There are also readers in countries which I was fortunate enough to visit when I was a backpacker in my twenties, including (alphabetically); Canada, France, Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Netherlands, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. 

Equally exciting is the fact that there are readers in countries I have not (yet) visited, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Kenya, Luxembourg, Pakistan, Philippines, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan and Uganda.  Part of my motivation to ‘get better’ is to look forward to travelling again.  Just reading the list of places that you’re all living in makes my heart skip a beat.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever make it on an international plane again (the cabin pressure would probably give me a migraine), but it’s nice to dream.

There is something very bitter-sweet about realizing that there are people all around the world looking for answers about migraines.  Bitter, because no one would wish this pain on anyone.  Sweet, because it makes the holistic healing journey feel less lonely knowing right at this moment, someone just like me is sitting at their computer, rubbing their eyebrow and sighing deeply.  Hopefully when they switch off their computer, they, like me, will feel a little less lonely, a little more-pain-less.

When you check on Wikipedia, it says “Worldwide, migraine affects nearly 15% [of the world’s population] or approximately one billion people.”  Not one million – ONE BILLION – people are affected by migraine at some point in their lives.

So wherever in the world you’re from, I’m really sorry that you’re a part of Team Migraine, but I also welcome you to The Mindful Migraine community.  I hope you find some of the answers you’re looking for, and if not, then at least a sense of companionship during your enquiries. 

Best wishes and take care, Linda.

PS – I just discovered ‘Google trends’ where you can see which countries have been looking up a term like ‘migraine’ over the last day / month / year.  As part of my interest in the world’s interest, I took a couple of screen shots of which countries conducted the most searches on migraine over the last 12 months.  For whatever reason, the Philippines, Netherlands and the United Kingdom took out the top three spots for most interested in the search term ‘migraine’. If I toggle the time frame to ‘5 years’ or ‘since 2004’ the names in the top 5 remain the same, only the order changes. Türkiye, Japan and Brazil, on the other hand, conducted the least amount of searches. Whether this means they’re less curious, less effected, or less likely to use the internet for medical advice – I don’t know.  Obviously, there are limitations in looking at things like this without knowing the full context – but it is interesting, nonetheless.