The Migraine Personality

Is there such a thing as migraine personality?

For many years, headache patientws were thought to have a certain personlity type, indeed it was (and still is in some circles) called the Migraine Personality.

So what is that? Well a type of person was described as a thin, white upper class female who was neurotic, anxious and controlling. Lovely. Kind of sounds insulting doesn't it?

If you examine this a little more closely, what was happening was that many doctors noticed the high association of anxiety and depression with migraine.

Well today we know it is true that 85% of all migraineurs have anxiety and depression, that doesn't mean that they are all control freaks.

What is really happening is that many headache sufferers have poor coping skills. When confronted with stress they do not know how to relax, get away or rationalize the stress. Instead they try to control it or become emeshed in the situation. The result is a headache which is the brains way of trying to distract the you from the situation.

So the key here is basically to learn better coping skills to lifes stressors. We all have stress but the idea is to learn to handle it better. Get away from the situation that is causing the stress. If your job is killing you, seriously think about what you are doing and why.

So it is really true, lifestyle changes can truly change your pain syndrome, but nothing changes until you do!

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