Positive Affirmations For Migraines

Written and verified by Holly Hazen

Doing positive affirmations for migraines can create optimism and can be used to encourage better health. For two decades now studies have shown a connection between health and a positive attitude.

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A famous research project from a group of Harvard undergraduates done during World War II followed the same group for 35 years.

By using questionnaires to measure the student’s optimism, they found that the participants that scored higher in the optimism testing had better health in their middle age than the pessimistic students.

This study's time spam is somewhat unique, but proves more solidly that being and remaining optimistic can effect one's health over time.

Optimism Can Be Learned

Psychologists, years ago, did studies that proved the theory of learned pessimism. The most famous ones used dogs that were placed in a pen and given a mild electric shock. They were not able to avoid these shocks and had to passively endure the shock rather than acting on their natural instinct to jump out of harms way to safety.

Even when they finally opened the doors to allow the dogs to escape, when the shock was delivered, they just laid down in the cage - defeated. This was termed learned helplessness and refers to the lasting effects of experiencing a situation which is not in our control. I think this is somewhat like having recurring migraines!

Having a chronic illness like migraine can induce feelings of helplessness similar to those experienced by those poor dogs. Just as feelings of pessimism can be learned, so too can optimism. Martin Seligman, a psychologist, has written a book called Learned Optimism that explains the benefits of positive thinking.

Other books that reinforce this cognitive therapy based style of positive thinking are: Feeling Good by David Burns and Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky. CBT is now being widely used with migraine disease. You might like to read CBT your migraines before writing your positive affirmation for migraines. 

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The Three Step Process To More Positive Thinking

The cognitive based therapy process is often divided into three steps:

1. Identify negative thoughts or “automatic thoughts” – your habitual way of thinking in reaction to your migraines like:

“I’ll never get any better. This is hopeless.”

We are often more harsh and judgmental with ourselves than we are with others.

2. Evaluate their validity – once you have identified your negative thoughts, evaluate if they are valid and realistic. So – is this true that I will NEVER get better, when in fact the reality is that I am better between each migraine.

3. Formulate a more realistic thought - train yourself to be more positive and realistic so that when you have the negative thought you can replace it with the new thought. It’s not just substitution, it is integrating the evidence of the more realistic outcome in a balanced way which will reduce stress.

"I know this will pass, I just need to rest and take my abortive now and I can return to what I was doing later tomorrow." By reducing the stress levels you are creating for yourself, you leave more calm space for your body to deal with the attack.

With all this in mind let’s write a positive affirmation for those nasty migraines.

Positive Affirmations for Migraines... An Example

For positive affirmations always start with I am:

I am enjoying optimum health with:

My brain neurons sending normal activity with clear signals to each other;

My brain chemicals maintaining perfect healthy balance;

My blood vessels maintaining perfect balance and are free flowing;

The communication between my neurotransmitters and my neurons is healthy and maintaining the levels of serotonin and other brain chemicals they need easily and effortlessly;

and (finish with)

and everything has helped this happen.

Writing positive affirmations for migraines can be much easier than this one above, but it is really good to be specific. And you might add smiling at each organ and blood vessel when you mention it. Speaking it out loud is more effective.

By repeating your positive affirmations for migraines it will help increase your own internal positive self talk.

Positive Self Talk

What is your self talk (forming negative affirmations) around fear? Does fear accompany your migraines? Destroy irrational fear and negativity once and for all.

Use positive affirmations for migraines to help reprogram your brain. 

Having said all this, I am in no way implying that we have chosen to make ourselves have migraines. I simply wanted to highlight the connection between a positive attitude and the potential health benefits. No one knows what causes migraines, and I was told for years that by thinking positively my migraines would heal themselves.

Well that was over 20 years ago, and after 20 years of therapy (CBT included) I still have chronic migraine attacks. But I treated myself much better when I stopped assuming that I was responsible for making myself sick and accepted that I actually have a medical condition that needs to be treated with medication possibly for the rest of my life.

Doing positive affirmations for migraines has more potential to help you develop hope, and inspire healing even in an area where you have a forever illness with no cure. I believe in cellular memory and that our bodies can hear all of our thoughts. And we know some of those thoughts are absolute rubbish! But now you know we can change that!

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Doing What Works

Recent studies prove that our best chance at reducing migraine attacks is to combine the traditional approach, medications, with alternative therapies. Acupuncture and biofeedback training are now the most widely recognized complementary therapies used to help with migraines.

Weekly acupuncture can get expensive, so I prefer to have a one off purchase like these devices below.

I find using ice and heat treatment is essential for aborting an attack.

Finding effective pain relief is worth experimenting with. So you can get back to your life sooner.

Who wants to stay in bed for days .... alone?

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Tweetable: “Even on good days, migraines still suck.”@MigraineSavvy

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