The Mindful Migraine

One of my migraine triggers is “lack of sleep”. I know this, so, I aim to get 8 hours of sleep a night. Sometimes, like now, in the Australian Summer, that means I have to go to bed pretty early, because my two fur-babies wake up at dawn (5.30am-ish-grrr) and start barking, ready and waiting for walkies. So, that’s a 9.30pm bedtime for me… and I’m pretty strict on adhering to that deadline.

Moreover, I’ve gotten pretty good at falling to sleep pretty quickly (thanks to the techniques that I use, which include: relaxing my pug-puppy face, saying the alphabet backwards or imagining a happy place).

Because I go to bed early, and go to sleep quickly – I should be getting a good 7-8 hours of sleep at night, every night.

BUT

I still look pretty shattered most days, with black circles under my eyes… it makes me look sick, tired, and old… and whilst I accept that I am most of these things, call me vain, but I don’t want it to be so obvious to everyone else!

So, given that I get a pretty decent amount of sleep, WHY do I have dark circles under my eyes?

Hmmm…

Let’s get webby…

ClevlandClinic.org was my first stop and – drats – it suggests that besides the main cause (fatigue) the next two big contributors are aging and genetics: “As you age, the skin below your eyes begins to loosen and thin out so the blood vessels under your skin may become more visible.” It tends to run in the family, so if your parents were pandas [my word choice not theirs], you will be too.

It states the other primary causes include drinking, smoking, eczema, allergies, rubbing your eyes excessively, spending too long in the sun, and dehydration (none of which really apply to me).

Their suggestions on how to reduce the darkness include:

• Get more sleep (7+ hours)
• Use more pillows (elevate your head)
• Cold compress (use cold spoons on your eyes to shrink dilated blood vessels)
• Cucumbers (lay cucumber slices on your eyes because they are full of water and vitamin C)
• Teabags (place cold tea bags under your eyes because of its caffeine and antioxidants)
• Facials (massages around the eye area can help improve circulation)
• Makeup (use a concealer)

There were some medical interventions listed as well, but these were essentially cosmetic surgery procedures, so they won’t get a shout out from squeamish me.

Healthline.com added another couple of potential causes which might be more relevant to me: eye strain, anemia, and nutritional deficiencies.

Their advice was similar, but noted any cold compress under your eyes can work (placed there for 20mins) and taking supplements can also help some people (but the list was long and included Vitamins C,E,A,K,B12 and more).

There were plenty of other (strange) suggestions online that all involved rubbing various food items on your face, (to the point that your face becomes a virtual buffet board!) including; grated potato, tomatoes, almond oil, rose water, apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, honey, castor oil, aloe vera, argon oil, milk, lemon juice, mint leaves and baking soda (!?)… all presumably to boost those missing vitamins in your diet, or simply to hydrate dry skin??

[Disclaimer: please be sure to always take extreme caution when placing any items close to your eyes and remember I have no medical or scientific training whatsoever so do not take healing advice from my blog posts.]

Feeling simultaneously overwhelmed AND underwhelmed, I remembered my mates over on Wikipedia, and they added one more potential cause to the list that served as a bit of an ah-ha moment: medication – “Any medications that cause blood vessels to dilate can cause circles under the eyes to darken. The skin under the eyes is very delicate, any increased blood flow shows through the skin.”

Hmmm… so it’s a subject as complicated as we are… there are 101 reasons it might be happening to any of us, but if I had to guess (for me), then it would be age, medications and eyestrain…

Cucumber rondelles, here I come…

Take care taking care out there all my little black-eyed beauties,

Linda x

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PS – if you have a go-to cure for dark-under-eyes, pop it in the comments below – thanks!