Yesterday’s post “can drafts can cause migraines?” got mixed responses here, and on Instagram and LinkedIn (where I sometimes post links). Some people were ‘heck yeah’, some were ‘I guess so’ and some were ‘meh…’ – which pretty much sums up all my feelings over the last few weeks I’ve been thinking about it.
There was one comment on LinkedIn, however, that felt like a bit of a tough-love moment. It came from a pain specialist in California who referred to the brain’s tendency to use “predictive coding” – if you think a draft will give you a migraine; it probably will.
It got me thinking of comparisons…
When I am well enough to drive, I head towards my destination, a bit pessimistic about my chances of finding a car spot. (I don’t know about where you live, but round here there are more and more houses being built, more and more cars, and less and less car spaces.) If I see an empty space a couple of blocks out, I tend to take it ‘just in case’ because ‘near enough is good enough’. If I do creep forward, I might say a prayer (no sacrilegious insult intended): “Hail Mary full of grace – help me find a parking space.” Sometimes it works. Mostly it doesn’t. My automatic, ingrained assumption is that I won’t get a parking spot, and low and behold, I don’t get a spot.
My husband is the exact reverse. He, the eternal optimist, always drives straight towards the front door, and like a VIP, finds a spot right out front of the building we’re going to. Very occasionally it doesn’t work out for him. In those instances, someone usually pulls out a few meters further down the road, as if they were just waiting for him to arrive.
As controversial as it might seem, I’m now wondering if this ‘predictive coding’ in my carparking might also be affecting my migraines. What you assume will happen, (sometimes) happens.
“If you don’t believe, you won’t receive” we used to tell the big kids and their cousins at Christmas time to keep Santa’s magic alive a little longer for the little kids.
Conversely, the reverse is possibly also true: “believe you’ll get a migraine, and you’ll receive a migraine”.
I’m NOT saying your pain isn’t real or you somehow wish pain upon yourself, of course you don’t. Migraine is a neurological condition, subject to a variety of triggers, not all of them predictable or controllable. Never in a million years would I give myself a headache so bad I throw up on myself, miss my daughter’s graduation, or break three of my own teeth in an afternoon. Nor do I accept the notion that I have complete and ultimate responsibility or control over my migraines – that feels unnecessarily cruel and depressing. This blog should be testament to the fact that you can do everything possible to get better, but rotten old hormones, unexpected flashes of bright light, or sudden drops in barometric pressure, can make everything come undone in a way that has nothing to do with ‘believing’ you’ll receive, consciously or subconsciously.
But… at some point we need to be a little bit honest with ourselves and ask if our heightened anxieties about getting a migraine don’t in some way contribute to us getting a migraine (in some instances).
Drafts have never been a problem for me for 40 years of migraine-pain, until someone mentioned it as their trigger, so I started to be hyper-alert to the possibility. What if, in being super self-aware of my mind-body relationship, I wasn’t ‘just ‘noticing’ a new relationship between ‘hitty-hair’ and headaches, I was accidentally ‘inventing’ a cause-and-effect relationship.
“Oh my goodness the sun is brighter than I expected today – wish I’d brought my sunglasses – I hope I don’t get a migraine – I think I might be getting a migraine,” is typical domino thinking for me when I’m anxious, as I’ve mentioned before. What if instead I said (as my husband definitely would):
“Oh my goodness the sun is so bright today – how lovely!”
Brand-new habits are probably as hard to break as really old ones, but I’m going to try to think like a VIP and be a little ‘cruisier’… in carparks… with my migraine triggers… and in general.
Wish me good luck – and for you too – best wishes, luck, hope, magic, good vibes, and a cruisier life, as always.
Take care, Linda x
The Mindful Migraine 
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