In Greek mythology, the goddess Athena sprang, fully formed, from her father Zeus’s head. That must have been quite painful for the thunder god. I can sympathize. When I get headaches, they really do feel like someone’s trying to batter their way out of my skull.
Ask Your Headache 2 Questions
Maybe the last thing you want to do is pay attention to your aching head when it hurts. But since you’re in pain anyway, you have nothing to lose. Here’s the technique: You ask two questions to your headache. Or, you can have someone else ask you the questions about your headache.The first question: If your headache were a color, what color would it be?
The second: If your headache had a flavor, what would it taste like?
We moved on to the second question. This headache of his, he said, had the flavor of peanut butter mixed with sand.
“That sounds disgusting,” I said.
“It is.”
We sat quietly for a moment.
“How does your headache feel now?” I asked.
“Better,” he said. Then he paused for a moment, to check in with his head. “I think it’s gone.”
Why Does Naming a Color and Flavor Affect the Pain?
I put this question to my friend Robbie, the one who taught me this technique. Robbie isn’t a health professional, but she is one of the smartest and best-read people I know.She told me she thinks it works best for tension headaches, which are caused by your neck and scalp muscles tensing up. When your muscles contract in this way, it’s often due to stress, or to a stressful or emotional trigger. Then, because your head is hurting, you feel more stressed or even more emotional as a result of the headache itself. When this happens, Robbie said, it blocks your qi.
In traditional Chinese medicine, qi is your energetic life force, a force that flows throughout your body. It’s often described as the energy your body obtains from food and air.
When your qi is blocked, your energy, libido, and even your decision-making skills suffer.
On the other hand, when your qi is flowing freely, you feel calm, centered, creative, and confident.
“For me, I’m focusing my energy into the places that are hurting, and it somehow relaxes the tension,” Robbie said.
Dr. Cammy Benton, a family physician based near Charlotte, North Carolina, says that directing mindful energy toward pain is often a way to help the body to heal.
“The pain is information,” Benton said, “and if we can stop and pay attention to it and ask ourselves about what it could be, then we can support our bodies’ natural ability to heal.”
When it comes to headaches and other aches and pains, Benton said, natural remedies are always better, more long-lasting, and more health-giving than simply taking drugs.
“Be curious about where this [pain] is coming from,” she said. “It can be as simple as ‘I need to stretch my body because I’ve been looking at the computer too long.’ Then you get up, go for a walk, stretch a little bit, and the pain goes away.”
Benton also believes that it’s important to drill down to the cause of the headaches—or any other pain—and address it at the root.
The Root Cause of the Pain in Your Head
My grandfather grew up in a small town on the Russian border with Romania. He emigrated with his family to the United States, living most of his life in New York and then moving to California with my grandmother to be closer to their grandchildren. Grandpa Willy was hale and active his whole life. He ate well, had a sharp mind, and lived to be nearly 90.Scientifically speaking, we understand now that there’s a very strong gut-brain connection.
“We have the divine ability to heal,” Benton said. “We just need to trust it. The healing is actually within ourselves.”
And then ask yourself about the color and flavor of your aching head. By the time you’ve done all that, your headache will be gone.