my achy breaky head

Hi everyone! I'm going to have to make this quick :(... this girl's got a migraine and a bad one. Yesterday, late afternoon, I was studying away when all of a sudden my head began to hurt. My hair was in a bun so I figured it was just from that tension (which it sometimes is) and immediately let it down. Unfortunately, that wasn't it. Within minutes the nausea, the light sensitivity, the pounding, and my favorite new symptom, the dizziness, began.

As a result I went to bed early, and so awoke naturally at six this morning. I felt fine, good even, for about three whole hours; I cleaned my room, ate breakfast, did laundry, scheduled tweets, and was about to sit down for another study sesh when... bam! The migraine was back again and stronger than ever :'(. It was so bad that I had to call my roommate to ask her to email my professor and explain why I could not come into class today. Ugh, I so needed to go to class today.

Now, it's only three in the afternoon, and although I am feeling a ton better, I am nowhere near 100%. As I mentioned earlier, my achy head always affects my sensitive stomach so all I've eaten today is the bagel above (one half with avocado, the other with butta) and the soup below (not an original picture). All I've done movement-wise is just go back and forth between quietly lying down on my bed and actual sleeping. The only true highlight, was my interview with Aimee Raupp, acupuncturist, herbalist, and author of Chill Out & Get Healthy. 

You may remember me raving about it over the summer? I got a free copy during my internship at Fitness :). Anyway, she was wonderful and incredibly helpful, and so, I'd like to share some tips from her book. My fellow-headache-sufferers, this is for you:

• Headaches are not natural but can be caused by the foods you eat, tension in your neck and shoulders, hormones, seasonal allergies, TMJ and/or suppressed emotions.
• Researchers from U. Washington found a direct correlation between headaches and aspartame intake. Avoid aspartame at all costs.
• Often people have a sensitivity to wheat that manifests itself with an oh-so-annoying headache. Try going without wheat and see if your daily headache doesn't disappear.
• Stop, drop, and sigh at the first sign of a tension and/or stress headache.
• Get yourself a lavender eye pillow when you feel a headache coming on, lie down, CTFO (Chill the F*** Out) and let the lavender relax your headache away. Or try taking a hot bath with four or five drops of lavender essential oil in it. Ooh-la-lavendar away your headache.

And so on and so forth. I can feel my own migraine making its way back into my painful day so I'm going to try to nap again, but if you're interested in reading more about Aimee's tools "to stress less, look your best, prevent disease, and live a more comfortable, harmonious life," I'd highly recommend Chill Out & Get Healthy. Ciao for now!