Choices, Headaches and Vintage People

Choices, choices, choices.

All of our lives we make choices. More than we would like to make. So many!

Some of our choices have been excellent, and some, well…maybe not so good.

But we keep on going.

Jerry L. Old MD is a geriatric physician. I figure, with a name like that, how could he be anything else? But, he didn’t intend to be a doctor with an elderly patient practice. It just worked out that way.

I loved reading his really cool book called Vintage People. Vintage People are elderly people who have aged well. Dr. Old calls them vintage because they are like fine wine.

They are people who have become better over time.

Do they have aches and pains? Lots of them do. It’s kind of hard to get older without something twinging somewhere at least occasionally.

Have they made choices? You bet. Were they all good choices? Not necessarily, but they kept on going, correcting the course as they went.

Dr. Old interviewed his vintage patients. Every one of them responded!

In many areas, there was no common agreement. For instance, eating habits. They were all over the place! Some people ate very healthily, some not, some ate a very specific diet. But, they had all made choices and they all had opinions about why their eating habits were the best for them.

I found that I kept smiling as I read.

Dr. Old told lots of interesting stories, good stories. He shared his own opinions and sometimes tells a joke on himself, too. His chapters cover such things as attitude, humor, religion, marriage. Often these are the words of his wise, vintage patients. You can imagine them talking directly to you.

Choosing to read a good book like this, or any good book that engages your mind, and that makes you smile or laugh is good medicine!

Laughing is like having a massage from the inside out. It creates feel-good hormones. It boosts our immune system!

Compare that to watching the evening news. Do you suppose that boosts your immune system? Did you realize that you can choose to watch the evening news…or not?

Even when I had a television, I did not watch the news. I read the Sunday paper selectively, starting with the funnies. I prefer the local newspaper to the big city paper because the local news has good news, not just argumentative, depressing stuff.

Back to the Vintage People.

Vintage people are active, as much as they are able. They are young for their age. They have friends of all ages, and even regard acquaintances as friends.

They enjoy little pleasures, like the sunset or a flower brushed with dew, sparkling like diamonds. They find ways to help themselves feel better.

When we become absorbed with something beautiful or interesting, we forget about the aches and pain. Sometimes we forget about a great deal of pain. And, often, when we forget to focus on pain, it actually goes away.

My father lived in Missouri. We hadn’t seen him in a few years. So, when we were traveling through Missouri, we decided to surprise him. His wife knew we were coming but he had a migraine headache. When we walked in the door, my dad was laying in a recliner with a cold cloth over his eyes.

He was so surprised and pleased that we were there, that in about ten minutes his migraine headache was gone! We altered his vascular system. 🙂

Will your migraine or pain go complete away if you have a pleasant surprise? Maybe or maybe not. But, when we focus on something other than the pain, often the pain does lessen or go completely away.

And sometimes pain goes away when we focus on it. Does that seem to be a contradiction?

Let’s use head pain as an example. Sometimes it feels as if our whole head hurts. It’s killing us. Where is the pain? Everywhere! It hurts all over.

But what if we pay attention to the pain? What if we direct all of our attention to the pain? Is it here? There? Where is it, really? You may even find that there are very specific areas where it hurts the most.

When you pay attention to them, you may even find that the specific areas of pain move. They are not constant. There is some ebb and flow. The most painful area changes location.

So, it’s not your whole head, after all.

What if you breathe into the pain? Does that change anything?

What if you tilt your chin up, or down?

What if you take deep breaths, moving your whole chest?

Paying attention is a choice. Breathing into the pain is a choice. Changing position to see if that helps is another choice. Focusing on something other than our pain is also a choice.

In my mind, there is nothing like a migraine headache. Not only does it hurt really bad, it reduces your ability to think. It reduces your ability to interact with others. It can strip away days of your life.

If migraines or bad headaches are a problem for you, there are choices you can make. No one but you can help you. Try the little suggestions above and below.

Pay attention to your posture. Not only does poor posture cause head pain, it causes us to be old before our time and to look old.

Watch your diet. Do certain foods cause your head to hurt? Do you still eat them? Why?

The more you understand about why you hurt, the more choices you can make to feel better.

We can choose to be Vintage People. Active, happy, healthy.

We can choose well.

2021 Note:  I’d forgotten about this book.  Now I want to read it again. 🙂

Share

Migraines, Headaches, Pain & Diet: Are You Taking Care of Yourself?

I recently went to a birthday celebration.

It gave me the opportunity to observe how some people take care of themselves…or don’t.

The party was for a sixteen-year old boy. He has chronic headaches.

He has been treated by a neuromuscular massage therapist (not me,) which helped, but did not cure him. He is being treated by a headache pain clinic. The various treatments he receives (some of which are not very pleasant, involving shots in his head, and medicine with side effects) also help only temporarily.

Because I specialize in relieving head pain and correcting posture, I watched him “in motion.”

He has been told about the connection between posture and his headaches. Someone told me that when his mother would say, “Sit up straight,” he would respond, “You don’t.” (And she doesn’t, but that’s another story. And, she doesn’t have constant headaches, either.)

So, over the course of several hours I watched the birthday boy. He slouched, he leaned back in his chair with his head pressed forward, he stood with a forward head/casual posture.

The thing is, when we do those things, those of us who are prone to headaches or migraines will get a headache or migraine. And, he does!

Those types of movements aggravate the muscles at the base of our skull and the front and sides of our neck. When those muscles get aggravated, they react by tightening up. They develop trigger points. The trigger points “trigger” pain in our head.

Another thing I noticed was that he was drinking an artificially sweetened drink. Can’t be positive, but I’m pretty sure that the headache clinic would have told him that artificial sweetners cause headaches.

So I wonder: why isn’t he being proactive – taking an active role – in helping himself to get rid of his headaches? He already knows the reasons for his head pain.

Right now I am speculating that he doesn’t know how to keep his head and body in neutral positions. Perhaps his back muscles and the muscles in back of his neck are too weak to hold him upright in neutral positions. Or, perhaps he thinks it wouldn’t be cool to be straight. He is not a tall, lanky boy, so it’s not concern that he is “too tall.”

People who get headaches and migraines have no choice except to fix their posture. The best way to do that is to get a strong backside, from the base of your skull to the back of your thighs.

The second opportunity I had was to talk with a man who has been seeing various nutritionists and naturopaths. He is looking for advice and products to cure his various health issues, and is going to see a new doctor shortly.

He wants herbal remedies or supplements, or some type of magic, to cure his problems, a lot of which are caused by his diet. He wants a doctor to cure him.

He also wants to continue to eat cookies and goodies and big meals and two servings of birthday cake!

Hmmmph! I guess we can’t have our cake and eat it, too, after all.

But, we can take care of ourselves. We can seek out the knowledge that will help us. We can take action. We can change old habits that are not good for us.

Because you deserve to feel better.

Share

Got Achy, Breaky Shoulders?

If you have achy, breaky shoulders you are not alone!

Our lives cause us to overstretch and strain our upper back muscles often. We work on a line, at a desk, holding our babies, cooking, or other things. All of them require us to hold our arms and hands in front of us for long periods.

The upper back muscles get overstretched and very often complain. They ache. They hurt. They cause headaches. Ouch!

Try these simple movements to strengthen your shoulders and make them feel better.

Let your breastbone lift by pretending there is a hook attached to it pulling you skyward. That will move your head back over your shoulders where it belongs.

Now lift your shoulders up toward your ears, and then let them roll backward. Move them down toward your waist. Lift, roll, move down. And do it again. Try squeezing your shoulder blades together as you bring your shoulders back and down.

Lifting and rolling your shoulders back and down does many good things:

1. It gets circulation going around your shoulders and neck.
2. It loosens the muscles around your shoulder blades.
3. It strengthens the muscles that hold your shoulder blades toward your spine.
4. It gives your poor, overstretched muscles a break!

If it feels good to you to roll your shoulders in a big circle, front to back or back to front, then do it. But, if it feels uncomfortable when you move your shoulders forward, don’t do it. Just lift, roll and lower your shoulders behind you.

Please remember, if you do a movement which your muscles haven’t done in a long time, they may get sore from the new movement. So, start slowly, just do a few, two or three.

As you muscles start to remember what they used to do, and become used to the movement again, you can start to increase the repetitions.

Lift, roll, squeeze your shoulder blades toward your spine, drop. Repeat.

Feels so good to get the muscles moving again!

Ahhhh.

Share