Migraine Symptoms -- Do Migraine Sufferers Have A Unique Personality?

Some sweeping generalizations have been popular over the years. Migraineurs have been characterized as perfectionists, people who are ambitious, rigid, obsessive and achievement-oriented. They have been described as individuals who have a lot of anxiety and who find it difficult to express feelings like anger and aggression.

There are two problems with this profile: 1. Observations of migraine sufferers don't support it. 2. The profile isn't 'operational' -- it doesn't provide any kind of handle for helping people to avoid migraine symptoms.

A more useful angle for the study and help of migraine sufferers is their response to STRESS -- since migraines have been shown to be related to anxiety, and to stress-related personality traits like nervousness, sensitivity, and proneness to worry.

WHAT THEY DISCOVERED:

As compared to migraine-free individuals, those who get migraine symptoms seem to deal with stress more often by avoiding problems -- wishing they would go away or imagining the worst -- rather than meeting them head-on. They also tend to criticize themselves, and to withdraw from others. These are all responses that tend to prolong stress rather than resolve it.

Migraine sufferers also tend to respond to stress by developing physical conditions (headache and related migraine symptoms) rather than responding verbally to the situation. That is, they tend to INTERNALIZE their response rather than EXTERNALIZING it.

To top it off, migraine sufferers tend to have a low regard for their own abilities to cope with stressful situations.

The first thing I wondered when I read the studies was -- which came first, the chicken or the egg? Do individuals develop migraine symptoms because of their response to stress, or do they develop these responses because they live with devastating headaches which often strike without warning?

When you're accustomed to regular sieges of pain, you may tend to become more inward-focused and less open.

The studies suggest there are two courses of action that migraine sufferers can take to help themselves:

1. Learn to VERBALIZE, particularly when you are experiencing stress -- even if it's out loud to yourself.

2. CONNECT with others. Maintain connections with other people, whether you 'need' to or not. Benefits: You realize others go through stress too. You see a range of coping mechanisms. You may find that someone has gone through what you're experiencing, and they found something that helped.

Sometimes just knowing that someone else has the same migraine symptoms you do, helps you by letting you know that you are not alone. You are not strange or abnormal or isolated -- there are other people who understand what you are going through, and who will not minimize or dismiss it.

Find out the 5 areas of imbalance that lead to migraine symptoms, and how you can help yourself, naturally


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Wishing you comfort and good health,
Sandra
http://www.avoidamigraine.com