Dealing With Headaches

My head has not been a happy camper for the last couple of weeks. I got over the Mother of All Sinus Headaches only to be knocked down yesterday by a migraine without aura. I’m still getting over it. I’d love to just curl up in bed for the rest of the day, nibbling on a Cheez-It every once in a while, but I have to work in order to pay those pesky bills.

I donned a pair of sunglasses, toddled over to the computer, blinked over a cup of tea and received a lovely email from He Who Shall Be A Writing Critic commenting on one of my articles about the evolution of birds on Helium. To put if briefly, he didn’t like it. At least, that was the general impression I got.

Guess What I Did?

I hit that DELETE button and tried to get on with my life. A writer can’t please everybody (especially a writer like me who has trouble with spelling). If I can please my clients, I’m ahead of the game. But I don’t handle insults well in the morning. Even after screaming obscenities at the email before I hit the wonderful, glorious DELETE button. (I think there should be a sound effect of angles singing whenever you delete an email like that).

Then I realized I had to get to work writing articles that I had to put off last night because of my headache. There’s always that breif grip of terror (”Will they like it? Or will I be laughed off of the planet?”) but then I tucked into my work. I was really mad at He Who Shall Be A Writing Critic.

And then, about fifteen minutes later, I realized my head was perfectly fine.

Is Anger Good For My Head?

I usually don’t recommend anger or bad vibes for migraine treatment — or getting over a migraine treatment, in my case. Anger can usually make your muscles tense up — such as clenching your jaw or knitting your brows — which can bring on tension type headaches. Also, Criticism can bring on the stress that can trigger a headache.

But then I should have felt worse after getting angry than better. I wonder why I did? Perhaps it was the rush of adrenaline. Perhaps it was concentrating on something else other than my migraine pain, letting medicine I had taken hours ago finally get a chance to work. Perhaps I’m not entirely human and have some genentic mutations in my DNA from a Tasmanian Devil.

Perhaps it was because I had a burst of anger, and then was able to forget about it while getting caught up in my work, instead of being ticked off for hours and hours and hours.

The only thing I do know is that sometimes getting really ticked off can lead to some positive results.

Unfortunately, that means I might have to one day thank He Who Shall Be A Writing Critic for helping my head to feel more like my head instead of a punching bag. Perhaps I was better off with the migraine.