Life with a fresh mind

According to the World Health Organization, these sensations are familiar to more than 72% of men and 95% of women. At the same time, one adult in twenty has a headache almost daily. More and more powerful painkillers are being invented, but even they are not able to permanently solve this problem.

Recent studies in this area have found that the quality of life of a person prone to regular headaches depends on the ability to control their behavior no less than on the competent prescription of the drug.

Head in the spotlight

“When arms and legs, that is, physical labor, were the main sources of well-being, neurological disorders were mainly related to the motor sphere,” says neuropsychologist Galina Arina. – These were strange paralysis of the limbs without organic causes, muscle clamps, leading to the inability to control your body, fainting, depriving you of movement.

In the modern information society, intellectual work becomes the main tool of activity. Praises “You are my clever!” and fears “You have to take care of your head!” accompany the child from early childhood. When we grow up, the head is unconsciously perceived as the most valuable part of the body. And immediately, anxious tracking begins: what is going on in your head?

We are afraid of concussions, pains, we are afraid to go crazy. After all, all this can make us incapacitated, destroy life. It’s a fear built into the culture. The disease clings to what the maximum attention is focused on, that is, to the head.

Symptoms and Causes

The two most common types of headaches are migraine and tension headache. Mikhail Bulgakov, a doctor by profession, in the novel “The Master and Margarita” gave a vivid description of the migraine experienced by Pontius Pilate. This is “an invincible, terrible disease of hemicrania (from the Greek. hemi -“ half ”and kranion -“ skull ”), in which half of the head hurts. There is no remedy for it, there is no escape.” The only thing Pilate dreams about is “leaving the colonnade inside the palace, ordering the room to be darkened, falling on the couch, demanding cold water, calling Bang’s dog in a plaintive voice, complaining to her of hemicrania.”

Usually with migraine, pain is felt in the frontotemporal region behind the eyeball, pulsates along with the beating of the heart and is accompanied by nausea, intolerance to bright lights and loud sounds. WHO has included migraine in the list of diseases that most disrupt the patient’s social adaptation.

Tension headache is even more common than migraine: according to research by the International Headache Society, almost 80% of people are affected to some degree. Unlike migraine, the pain is usually bilateral, compressive or pressing in nature, mild or moderate, and does not worsen with physical exertion.

“It used to be that tension headaches, unlike migraines, are of a psychological nature,” says Irina Shuvalova, a crisis psychologist at the Center for Emergency Psychological Assistance of the Ministry of Emergencies. – They were even called “psychogenic” or “stressful”. But today it is known that both types of headache have organic, mental, and behavioral components.

Tension headache is associated with so many factors: tension in the muscles of the head and neck; spasms or dilation of the arteries of the brain; violation of venous or lymphatic outflow; irritation of pain receptors of the membranes and vessels of the brain; imbalance between the systems responsible for the analysis, the emergence and suppression of pain impulses.

Headache and psycho-emotional state

“Headache regularly intrudes into my life and unsettles me,” admits 32-year-old Elena. – You can’t do anything, everything is annoying, not only plans are collapsing, but also relationships with people. I would like to be sympathized with, treated with understanding, but you do not always get what you want. When he lets go of his head, it would seem that everything should work out, but resentment towards loved ones remains.

Such a person is vulnerable, he is looking for support, but often a stream of complaints causes a backlash in others, which increases stress and, along with it, the pain itself.

“Psycho-emotional stress is directly related to the sensation of a headache,” explains Viktoria Stankevich, a neurologist at the Headache Clinic. It happens that we ourselves drive ourselves into a trap, hoping that our complaints miraculously ease the attack. “The expression of suffering on the face leads to unconscious muscle tension,” adds Irina Shuvalova, “breathing becomes more frequent and superficial.

All this leads to an increase in psycho-emotional stress and increased pain, closing a vicious circle. It is necessary to use contacts with loved ones, but not in order to discuss your pain, but in order to stop fixating on it. Engaging in a conversation on an emotionally significant topic, many were surprised to find that they were gradually letting go of their heads. Taking responsibility for your reactions, getting out of depressive depression is a difficult task, but solvable.

Allow the body to be happy

“My head started hurting when I was a teenager,” recalls Anna, 43. – This always happened on certain days of the monthly cycle, and I began to wait with horror for them. Gradually, the whole life was divided into two halves: the experience of pain and the expectation of it. Now all my plans are built around this. The calendar highlights the days when a migraine is likely to occur. I’m canceling all travel and canceling appointments. On other days, I try to make up for lost time by staying late at work. With such loads, you stop feeling like a person: I remind myself of a robot – if only I could do everything.

Chronic headaches can become the organizing principle of all life; not only all plans, but also emotions and experiences are subject to them. All the attention of a person is concentrated on the question: does it already hurt or not yet? “People who regularly experience such attacks lose contact with their own body during light intervals,” says Galina Arina. – In anxious anticipation, they are not able to get real pleasure from bodily sensations.

The taste of food, sexual pleasure, the joy of playing sports and walking – all this loses its charm. They even begin to evaluate their own appearance through the prism of fear: am I very pale or not very pale today, is there swelling of the eyelids or not? They easily recall the details of the localization and nature of the pain, but describe the rest of the body in one word – “normal”.

Psychoanalysts interpret headache attacks in such people as a reminder of the fact of the existence of the body. It becomes, as it were, a point of return to bodily sensations, a requirement to take care of oneself in the literal sense of the word. Mentally preparing himself for the next attack, a person allows a headache to spoil his life even in those bright moments when he does not experience it. If you try to saturate life with positive emotions, and please the body with physical activity, then the next attack will not be so long and less intense – this is a medical fact.

Healing relaxation

“There is always a certain muscle tension in the structure of a headache. To tame it, you need to start with relaxation,” advises Tatyana Konyaeva, head of the diagnostics department of the Center for Emergency Psychological Assistance of the Ministry of Emergencies. – For those who do not have much experience in relaxation (which, for example, years of yoga, qigong or tai chi practice gives), conventional relaxation techniques are not always effective. This is due to the fact that we do not have objective criteria to assess whether the muscles are relaxed enough, whether the breathing is set up correctly.”

To control the relaxation process, methods and devices of biofeedback – BFB are used. “This method makes it possible to detect those body parameters that affect headaches, but are usually not amenable to direct human observation,” says Victoria Stankevich. – The patient is located in a chair, with the help of sensors, indicators of muscle tension, heart rate, alpha-rhythms of the brain and temperature of the fingertips are taken. On the screen – a multi-colored iridescent pattern, reminiscent of a mosaic of a kaleidoscope, pleasant music is heard. It is worth clenching your teeth, raising an eyebrow – the picture freezes, or even completely goes out. The pitch of the melody rises.

This is how a person learns that involuntary movements and even thoughts interfere with his relaxation. The tips of the fingers became warmer, which means that the tension decreased, the vessels expanded, and there was a partial outflow of blood from the brain. There were fewer prerequisites for an attack. The goals of biofeedback training are to learn to notice your tension and develop your own way of coping with it. By taking bodily tension under control, we destroy the main trigger of headaches.

Principles of treatment

More and more powerful analgesics are sold without a prescription, but in fact, pharmacotherapy of frequent headaches is possible only on the prescription of a neurologist. Self-medication can lead to the development of a drug-induced, so-called chronic abuse headache.

Acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, manual therapy and massage are also used in the treatment. Sometimes they give a very good effect. But no traditional or non-traditional direction guarantees a complete and final recovery.

The reason is simple, and it is literally in our head, it directly depends on the way of life and our attitude towards it. The ability to manage emotions, body and tension becomes a key moment in getting rid of seizures.