About once a month I get a migraine that puts me down for a few hours and drastically increases my gratitude for the most mundane things once it has passed. There are a number of strategies that I use to combat these headaches which usually encompass the left side of my head, neck and back. When I was a teenager, I used a bandana tied tightly around my head and soaked with alcohol.
After I had my son, the bandana was replaced by one of his cloth diapers, which conferred a kind of comfort that may have had curative properties as well. My alcohol of choice was and still is a green liquid marketed in the Caribbean as a cooling aid to be used in hot weather. It comes in a plastic bottle with a picture of a penguin and a glacier.
As I got older and the migraines got meaner, I needed to add medication to the mix - usually Excedrin Migraine. However, when I began to practice yoga, I learned that body movement in itself could be healing. The theory is that even without conscious intent, the body is always trying to generate antidotes to whatever ails it, and that physical movement aids this process. I started to apply this whenever I had a migraine. The only directive to be followed is the body's own feeling. Sometimes there is an urge to twist, or to yawn or to stretch or move in some specific way.
With my migraines, twisting my body at the waist plus hyper-extending my neck to one side with my jaw dropped, synchronized with deep breathing worked wonders. Sometimes my mouth would suddenly be flooded with a distinctive tasting saliva - sweet, bitter, salty or some combination of these. In training, I was taught to mindfully swallow this saliva as it contained some medicine which was generated by my body.
Yesterday's headache did not yield for six hours, even with the 4 pronged approach of the bandana with alcohol, medication plus yoga. It was like riding a raft downriver complete with rapids, eddies and waterfalls. It may sound odd, but it was an interesting journey. And once I reached the end of the ride - the world was new again.
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