No More HeadachesEliminate headaches without medication

The thoughts in your head are major contributors to migraine and headache pain. When thoughts feed inner conflict and internal fears, the headache cycle is encouraged. By learning how to reduce mind chatter, the frequency and duration of headaches can also be reduced.

For most people, the mind is constantly active. Even when asleep, you may be dreaming or aware of your surroundings. Thoughts are constantly activated throughout the day. While some thoughts revolve around the task at hand, many other thoughts occur in the mind as well. Whether analyzing, recalling or visualizing, the mind is often involved with topics outside your current environment.

The moment that you wake up, the thought machine is directly activated and your day begins. The thoughts that you have in the first half hour are an indicator of how your day might go. Do your first thoughts of the day make you feel better or worse? When you step out of bed, it is likely that plans are already being considered. Hopes and expectations, fears and strategies may all come together as you brush your teeth.

As your day progresses, some of the thoughts are about what you are doing. Whether it is work, play or just daily routine, our minds focus on things that capture our attention. As the mind wanders, you may drift into analytical mode and thought processes escalate. We begin to recall details and piece together information like a puzzle, determining what we should do next. The more concerned we are about a topic, the more we tend to think about it.

When thoughts create an emotional response we tend to feed those feelings with more thoughts. For example, if you are worried about someone, you may begin to analyze all the facts, adding in your own beliefs and assumptions to create potential future outcomes. Your worry may escalate into fear about the well-being of a loved one You may try to figure out what you should do. You may think about someone over and over and over, waiting for information. With lack of information, worries and fears can increase through repetitive thinking.

When we are confused about our position of life, inner conflict results. When we are unhappy in our current situation, we tend to observe more reasons that prove why our unhappiness is justified. When we are concerned or angry about something, we tend to think about it over and over again, recalling tiny details and reconstructing events in our minds. If conflict is unresolved and continually fed by activating thoughts, pressure and pain can result.

The relationship between thoughts and emotions is direct. Thinking about a particular topic can awaken emotions. We often imprint stories in our mind as tools to create these emotions. Remembering a particular story can easily activate anger or frustration. Joy and laughter can be just as easily activated through memory, though most mind chatter tends to feed the more difficult feelings.

When thoughts enter our mind, emotional attachment increases their strength. Often inner conflict exists around unresolved questions, and these conflicts serve as fuel for the thought machine. Thoughts containing anger, worry, frustration, doubt or blame create an emotional feeling that feeds itself with more thoughts. As you continue to analyze, the whirlwind of thoughts in your brain can gain overwhelming strength. However, the pressure and pain can often be avoided if thoughts are shut down early enough.

The ability to quiet the mind chatter is a critical skill in migraine management. Headaches and mind chatter are closely linked; though which one causes the other is debatable. The bottom line is that persistent thoughts can increase the pain and duration of a headache, while reducing mind chatter can decrease the duration and frequency of headaches. Learning how to shut down your mind and manage your thoughts is a huge step in self-empowerment.

The key element in reducing mind chatter is recognizing that your thoughts are only part of you. You have the ability to choose what you think about. While avoidance of stressful issues only provides immediate relief, there is no point trying to figure things out when a headache is imminent. Whatever it is that you are thinking about is probably less important than your current state of well-being. Whatever the topic, mind chatter can usually be dismissed for resolution under more productive circumstances.

Perhaps you could treat your thoughts as you would a persistent child who wants your attention. When a negative thought enters your mind and tries to take over, separate from the thought and dismiss it. It doesn’t need to be addressed at this moment. Getting angry or frustrated at a persistent child only encourages conflict. Through deep breathing and intentional relaxation, remain calm, patient and empowered. Eventually these thoughts will quiet down and wait until you are ready for them.

Your thoughts have direct impact on your state of being. Do depressed thoughts cause depressed feelings, or do the feelings cause the thoughts? In either circumstance the relationship between thoughts and feelings is evident. Shutting off the fuel can quiet the thought machine. Empowerment grows by learning how to manage your thoughts.

Learning how to control your thoughts can be achieved through intention and practice. Once you become capable of choosing which thoughts are dominant at any particular time, you begin to realize your power. When you recognize that you are in a cycle of escalating mind chatter, you can decide to stop. Whatever it is you are thinking about will be easier to resolve once the mind chatter is eliminated. There are many other positive ways to resolve life’s problems. Mind chatter just makes resolution more difficult.

In a previous article, ‘Quieting the Mind’, there is an outline of a relaxation exercise. There are also many CD’s available which guide you through the steps of meditation. Most have soft music, soft voices and enlightening statements. If this type of material motivates you, it can work well. Others gain skills of focus through gentle exercises such as tai chi, also called ‘the moving meditation’. The most important decision is to practice thought-management skills when you don’t have a headache in order to increase your abilities when a headache arrives.

Here is something unique to consider. An experiment was done which took DNA samples from 28 people and placed them in a different room. The twenty-eight researchers were trained to evoke emotions. When these researchers expressed deep feelings, the corresponding DNA reacted. Feelings of love and gratitude expanded the DNA, while feelings of anger, stress and fear caused the DNA to contract. While the experiment only measured the effect of emotions on sample DNA, what was happening inside the bodies of the researchers as their emotions awakened?

Your thoughts have direct impact on your health, particularly if you experience migraines. For some people, quieting the mind is a difficult task. ‘I can’t stop thinking about it’ is a common statement, since when something is ‘on our mind’ it keeps ‘coming back to haunt us’. If you have never meditated or learned to sit in stillness, it can seem difficult. However, quieting the mind is a skill that can be learned through awareness, intention and practice.

Transformational Exercises

Continue practicing the three-minute exercise described in ‘Quieting the Mind’.

Become aware of mind chatter and which topics have the greatest impact on you.

When you feel mind chatter beginning to build, write down the conflicts or questions involved and put them away until another time.

When you are in a relaxed and peaceful state, write about each conflict, why it exists in your life, and what you can do to change it.

Also consider what would happen if the conflict is not resolved.

Copyright 2008 Glenn Stewart Coles