I started having migraines when I was about 7 years old and found them a very scary experience. There is something quite frightening about experiencing that degree of pain in the part of the body where the brain is stored!
Luckily, my migraines would disappear after I had vomited, and gone to sleep- pain killers wouldn’t touch them it all. I was also fortunate to not experience the distorted vision (sometimes called a warning aura) or prolonged nausea or the kind of migraines that last for several days.
I recently experienced a headache after visiting a friend who lives around 45 miles from my home. On the way back, the oncoming headlights of the cars began to irritate me, and I sensed that my headache was going to develop into a migraine. I knew that if I allowed that to happen I would certainly be stuck a long way from home, so I made the decision to stop at a service station, park up my car and lay in a hypnotic trance on the back seat for about 20 minutes. Hey presto, 20 minutes later I was fit to continue my journey.
The reason why migraines occur is largely to do with chemicals within the body. Your body is like a laboratory, and the chemical within it have an impact on your physical body. When a person has a migraine, there is a change in the serotonin levels in the body (it drops) and this causes the blood vessels to swell. It is the swelling that causes the pain.
People experience migraines for different reasons, emotional stress, or tiredness are often factors, some foods may also be a trigger, or in my example above bright lights were a factor and loud noises can be too. Going without food can cause a migraine. to start, menstruation or even changes in the weather!
Hypnosis is a wonderful way to escape from the pain of migraine for several reasons. Firstly the trance can be laced with suggestions for controlling and lowering the level of pain experienced. The simple relaxation is also hugely beneficial- if the migraine. was not caused by stress, you can expect that after the onset of the pain there is definitely going to be some stress and relieving that can only be a good thing. For reoccurring migraines, suggestions can be given to help the patient become more aware of the subtle warning signs that a headache or migraine. is on the way. Then self hypnosis or relaxation can be used to prevent the symptoms from increasing.
By Gemma Bailey
www.hypnotherapyandnlp.co.uk
