Do you have chronic migraine? Nothing is clicking? Want to check and try and new method on your own?

1. Migraine, stress and meditation
6th June 2012
By Abhijit Kamat
www.simplemeditation4health.wordpress.com
www.stressguru.co.in
Migraine is a chronic disorder characterized by moderate to severe headaches, and nausea. Although some believe it to be a
[1]
neurological disorder, there is no evidence to confirm this theory. Migraines are about three times more common in women than in
[2]
men. ( ref Wikipedia).
This topic is to suggest meditation and emotion management for those who want to try it. This does not
recommend patients to stop their medicines. Everybody has his/her own capacity to progress in
meditation and emotion management. There are also some other factors that may be affecting the
healing process. Infinite patience is required.
Why migraine:-
Everyone has the habit of getting lost into thoughts, unfortunately most of the people think of either
past or of the future and get entangled into emotional pains, however that has no present value. This
article is to explain how this emotional pain, -ve thoughts may create migraine.
Why and What do people think?
a) When people think about the past, it’s some unwanted painful incidents, namely insults, losses,
separations etc. where “Igo” had got hurt very badly. We generally don’t forget those pains and
we love to cuddle our ego and the fire remains active deep inside our mind.
b) When we think of future, we imagine some bad things, starting from our own death, death of
the near and dear ones, business losses, separations, health problems etc. This has as such no
real value today, but we think and feel sad. It’s a habit.
c) Third category is day dreaming. We think of beautiful things and try to feel happy, those are not
possible today. For eg. Income exceeding in multiples and from multi directions, extra marital
affair, promotions, owning a big property- vehicles, having multiple girl/boy friends etc. After
the dreaming is over when people come to reality, they feel sad.
d) These above mentioned thoughts are just examples to show where mind can swing. It has no
limitations.
How is this different than planning?
Pl. note that above process of thinking is not planning. During planning one is in control of thoughts
and target is known. It’s a systematic effort to reach to some conclusion. In above category of
thinking, one’s mind is swinging and there is a sole purpose of pleasing own mind or pin down with
sadistic feeling.
How these thoughts are related to migraine?

2. 1. There is a simple example how thoughts can create magic in body. During adolescence, boys
often get erection with simple thoughts of sex or orgasm. The whole mind-body machinery gets
activated for sex (In reality, the situation may be totally different or hopeless, but brain tricks
the hormone secreting glands and they release hormones).
2. Another example. When you are solving SUDOKU and you can't complete it, it does not matter.
But if that is a part of a contest and it’s winning is going to give your $5000 prize, then the whole
mind-body would be under stress to achieve it anyhow. Under this situation, every simple thing
may turn difficult. Your blood pressure may rise, fingers may tremble, mind may get confused
over priorities. What will happen if the prize is now $1 million. More stress? that means when
the stakes are higher it results into higher stress.
3. Some people like to work in stress. They feel that there is more zing thing to complete targets
on last moments. This zing thing is nothing but the effect of hormones released in stress and
people are not aware what the long term effect would be.
4. Now our topic, thoughts and migraine.
a. Have you ever tried to drill down (analyze in detail with detached interest ) into
headaches? For example, its intensity, orientation, timing and duration etc?
b. Have you analysed what happened during that morning or previous day etc? what did
you eat? What was your body’s reaction, when you had thoughts of helplessness, anger,
shame or disgust and you could not express them.
c. Every individual has a thinking capacity and when it is loaded with painful or awkward
situations, brain may get flooded with many signals and trips, its circuitry gets over
heated and we call it head ache. In computer terminology it is called “PC gets hung”
when you try to run too many or heavy programs or type too many commands at one
time.
d. Some old, unknown mental pains ( or thoughts?) remain active in subconscious for
years, that may bounce back occasionally on mind’s surface without our knowledge and
we call the result as chronic migraine.
e. Women are more emotional than men, Does this result into more women suffering
than men. Pl. read again article from Wikipedia ( Moreover, fluctuating hormone levels indicate a
migraine relation: 75 percent of adult patients are women, although migraine affects approximately equal
numbers of prepubescent boys and girls. )
Self help:
Pl. read again, be comfortable, relax, try and start drilldown into your mind before reading on
meditation.
Why meditation?
I recommend any specific meditation that would help in stilling your thoughts (or help in
focusing mind in one direction), not only during the time when you sit for mediation but
throughout the day. For eg. Buddhist call it “moment to moment awareness”, Mr. KD Belsare
refers it as “anusandhan” in his various books on Naamsmaran.

3. The results are astonishing. Because ,…
1. With the calm mind, when there are no sundry thoughts, there is no diversion of your
mental energy ( and obviously physical energy). With frequent practice of stilling your mind,
whatever old unwanted neurons (of thought patterns) are formed start disappearing.
2. It is often referred by saints as “Body evolves along with changes in mind”( "मनासहित पलटे काया"
संत तुकाराम). Sri Sri Ravishankar had referred it as DNA changes with the longer practice of meditation.
3. Even if you get dragged into unwanted thoughts, you can retain balance and come back to
normalcy.
4. Faith factor improves
References and links:
i. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migraine
ii. Articles on what is meditation?
iii. Guided body scan meditation.
iv. Stress and health problems of type A personality businessman
v. Breathing problems, stress and healing
vi. What is samkhara (mental conditioning)
vii. Various articles by Dr S. kashalikar.
PS- Pl. do provide your valuable feedbacks and blessings.
Abhijit Kamat