Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Meditation and Other Hazards

I've had tension headaches nearly daily for 10 or 15 years. Yep. As a teen, if I didn't take a Tylenol before leaving for school, whether I had a headache or not, by the time school let out I'd be at migraine levels. Have you ever had a migraine? They are.not.fun.

So in this manner, I was able to curb the headaches as much as possible. Eventually they nearly disappeared, but lately they are back with gusto. I have been taking ibuprofen 1-2 times a day, every day, for the pain. Doesn't sound healthy? It's not. It's actually a really bad idea. But, for the most part, it was a choice of dealing with ridiculous, blinding amounts of pain, or taking some ibuprofen.

Recently, as my headaches got more and more out of control, I turned to some specific stretches, using better posture, and meditating. Not the trying to attain enlightenment on some astrophysical plane sort of mediation, but just sitting quietly, eyes closed, and just breathing. And you know what? It helped. A lot. I went 3 days without having to take anything. That was huge for me. (I admit over the past 24-36 hours I've been really stressed and last night and this morning I had a lot of trouble just breathing the stress away. I took some ibuprofen as the pain got worse.)

This afternoon I put on an episode of Voltron on my computer for Viking Child to watch (Philosopher Child is at school), brewed some herbal tea, and was going to go and just sit and meditate as the next round of headaches was creeping up.

As soon as I was going to sit, Viking Toddler ran in, asking to watch something on the TV instead. I explained to him that I really needed him to go watch Voltron, for just a little while, and I would call him in a bit. He went back pretty easily. I was on my way to go sit, but the dog had to go out now. Fine. Take the dog out. Go back to sit. As I am, Viking Toddler runs in with another demand, and while my attention is focused on him, I back into a bucket that Husband had used to fix some plumbing yesterday. Ick all over the back of my pants that I had just put on. Go to change my pants. Go back to sit to find that Viking Toddler had gone behind my back and put something loud on TV. In a last bit of frustration, I simply shouted, "I GIVE UP!"

And then I came here to vent.

And now my tea is ready.

2 comments:

Blue Star Vermont said...

Nice to meet you on the Apronista. Enjoy those marvelous boys. We laud your work with meditation to help with headaches. Contemplation is part of our lives. We find singing the word HU (pronounced like the word "hue") inwardly or outwardly is healing and uplifting.

Kristina said...

Thank you so much for the encouragement. Some days are better than others, but I'm holding my own.

It was nice to see you on Apronista. I have a big thing for aprons and generally sew my own, but darn it that apple one is cute!