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Beyond pain: Migraines have been linked to higher cardiovascular disease risk.

by Susan Weiner, Energy Times

The French have a saying that translates as “the heart is forever making the head its fool.” For those who endure migraines, the opposite may be true: Migraine sufferers are slightly more prone to heart attacks and other cardiovascular ills than others.

According to the National Headache Foundation (NHF, www.headaches.org), 70% of the more than 29 million Americans with migraine are women; fluctuating estrogen levels may be the reason. While the precise cause of migraines is not fully understood, swelling of blood vessels in the brain can trigger throbbing pain in the eye, jaw or face, sensitivity to light and sound, and nausea and vomiting. Stress, lack of food or sleep, anxiety, weather changes and certain foods can set off an attack.

Visual disturbances known as aura—such as partial blindness or seeing flashing lights—that may accompany migraine appear to be especially problematic. Among women 45 and older who experience aura, the risk of dying from heart attack, stroke and heart disease is twice that of women without migraine (BMJ 8/24/10 online).

People with migraine were found to be twice as likely to experience heart attack, diabetes or a heart abnormality; aura pushed risk to the highest levels (Neurology 2/23/10).

However, the threat posed by migraines is not as great as that of other risk factors. “Being twice as likely to have a heart attack translates into 4.1% of people with migraine compared with 1.9% of those without, which is not that much of an increase in real numbers,” explains Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, author of The Magnesium Miracle (Ballantine; www.drcarolyndean.com).

Most migraine sufferers would tell you that reducing the risk of an attack is a worthy goal of its own. In one NHF survey, nine out of 10 reported not being able to function normally when a migraine strikes.

Life-Altering Headaches

Jodie Pulkinen knows how migraines can disrupt one’s existence. To relieve the pain she has hidden in dark rooms, driven to the emergency room for shots of Demerol and ingested enough ibuprofen to cause liver damage. She’s also struggled with a heart condition marked by chest pain, fatigue, rapid heart rate and palpitations.

In 2004, Pulkinen’s resting heart rate stayed at the very high 220 beats per minute for several hours. Soon after she underwent a mitral valve catheter ablation, a procedure that fixed her heart and unexpectedly lessened her migraines. “I never thought the migraines and the heart condition were connected,” says Pulkinen, 43, a project coordinator for the American Lung Association in Burdett, New York. “After the surgery, I had fewer headaches. If I’d known, I could have done something about my heart a long time ago.”

After the surgery Pulkinen made dietary changes. “I cut out all caffeine,” she says. “No coffee, no soda, no chocolate. I’ve reduced my sugar intake as well.” Migraine sufferers should also avoid an amino acid byproduct called tyramine, found in a number of foods and food additives including MSG, aged cheese, sauerkraut, alcohol and preserved meats. Eating cold foods can trigger migraines, as can skipping meals and becoming dehydrated. In addition, extra body fat has been found to both provoke migraines and increase heart risk.

Taking a magnesium supplement and eating magnesium-rich foods such as green vegetables and whole grains can not only fend off migraines but also help maintain a steady heart rhythm and lower blood pressure. This mineral, which prevents blood vessel spasms and regulates pain receptors, has been shown to help ease migraine (Magnesium Research 6/08). “A deficiency in magnesium will cause migraines and heart disease. Treating with magnesium can treat both,” says Dean.

Relaxing for Relief

Migraines and heart disease run in the family of Andrew Levy, PhD. In addition to taking blood pressure medication that eases migraines, Levy, an English professor at Butler University in Indianapolis and author of A Brain Wider Than The Sky: A Migraine Diary (Simon & Schuster), eats less, exercises more and practices stress reduction. “The fact that doctors have told me about these potential links between heart disease and migraine has actually not been a source of stress for me,” says Levy. “It has helped me to understand my own body better from a holistic standpoint.”

As Levy has discovered, learning how to relax is a key to reducing migraines. In one study, a combination of gentle yoga postures and breathing exercises lessened migraine frequency and pain, and improved mood (Headache 5/07).

Migraine sufferers can also benefit from the herb feverfew, which slows the production of inflammatory compounds and helps maintain proper vessel tone. A combination of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12 may reduce migraine frequency and lower levels of homocysteine, an amino acid linked to coronary disease and migraines (Pharmacogenetics and Genomics 6/09). CoQ10, a supplement best known for its cardiac benefits, may help reduce migraine frequency.

If your migraines persist, see a practitioner and don’t assume the worst. As Aristotle once wrote, “Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.”

When It Isn’t a Migraine

It’s hard to find an adult who hasn’t had a headache at least occasionally. But for some people headaches are, if not a daily occurrence, frequent enough to interfere with their quality of life. Besides migraine, the National Headache Foundation classifies chronic headache into the following categories:

• Cluster: Described as even more severe than migraines, these headaches occur in groups and with little warning for weeks or months before disappearing for months or years. They tend to strike late at night or in the morning. Most sufferers are men, and both smoking and alcohol use are precipitating factors.
• Hormone: These headaches can occur as part of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or accompany the menstrual period itself; some women may experience hormonal headaches as they pass through menopause. Pregnancy usually brings relief from migraines because hormones don’t fluctuate the way they usually do during a woman’s menstrual cycle. Migraines that do occur during pregnancy tend to strike in the first trimester.
• Rebound: Headaches triggered by the over-use of medications, particularly those that contain caffeine.
• Sinus: Headaches triggered by infection, inflammation or other problems with the sinuses. Symptoms include a dull ache in the forehead or behind the cheekbones and a sense of sinus fullness.
• Tension: Most headaches that occur every once in a while fall into this category, but some people experience tension headaches on a chronic basis. More annoying than throbbing, these headaches are often centered in the forehead, temples or back of the head and the neck; some people feel as though a band is being tightened around the head. Chronic tension headache can stem from physical causes—poor posture or lighting, eyestrain, misalignments of the jaws or teeth, spinal problems involving the neck—or emotional ones such as anxiety or depression.

A sudden, severe headache can signal the occurrence of a stroke; such headaches are medical emergencies, especially if accompanied by a sudden lack of balance, difficulty speaking and/or weakness on one side of the body. A relatively small number of headaches can stem from other organic causes such a brain tumors or infections, or other serious—but fortunately rare—conditions.

If you suffer from frequent headaches, try keeping a pain diary: when the pain starts, the nature of the pain (throbbing, dull, piercing) and where it occurs, any other symptoms and what you took for relief. If you can see a pattern, trying also keeping a food diary as well—sometimes a simple change in diet can do the trick. Some people find relief through acupuncture, massage and other kinds of bodywork. If your headaches are stress-related, make your you get adequate supplies of vitamin B and both calcium andmagnesium, which are available in combination supplement form; the herb white willow bark may also help.

You don’t have to spend the rest of your life bingeing and feeling bad about it.

by Susan Weiner, Energy Times

Sometimes your strongest cravings for food take place when you’re feeling the weakest emotionally. A stressful day at the office may steer you to the nearest fast-food eatery for a double cheeseburger, while an night spent arguing at home might end with a bowl of ice cream.

Food does more than simply fill the stomach when used to feed mounting emotions in situations such as these. At that point it can sabotage good diet intentions and lead to a never-ending cycle of bingeing and self-blame.

While few of us take pleasure in facing tumultuous feelings of depression, anger, sadness and resentment, stuffing these emotions inside can eat away at self-esteem, triggering anxiety and an irresistible urge to indulge. An unhealthy binge commonly leads to feelings of guilt and a cascade of self-blame that tends to repeat itself.

When you take a harsh view of yourself as weak, overweight and unable to lose weight, those negative thoughts only perpetuate weight gain. In fact, when participants in one study engaged in self-criticism and self-blame, their brains showed activity in brain regions correlated with depression, eating disorders and anxiety (NeuroImage 1/15/10).

“When we feel really bad, either from an uncomfortable emotion or when we add insult to injury through criticizing ourselves, we may try to avoid or ward off the feeling by eating. That’s emotional eating, and it’s a defense against feeling bad,” explains Christopher K. Germer, PhD, clinical psychologist and author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion (The Guilford Press, (www.mindfulselfcompassion.org). “We do it to bypass the pain and to feel better. It’s an excellent short-term solution, but the long-term consequences can be devastating.”

The remedy to emotional overeating, suggests Germer, is mindfulness—being aware of your emotions and how they affect you—and self-compassion. These practices give you the strength to evaluate what’s really bothering you and to respond with self-kindness rather than criticism. “That gives us a little more mental space to make healthy choices,” says Germer. “Self-compassion is a new habit that anyone can learn. Deep within all beings is the wish to be happy and free from suffering.”

Baby Steps

After gaining more than 40 pounds, Lauren Tobin learned how to practice self-compassion, which ultimately allowed her to drop the excess weight. “I think back emotionally to what was going on in my life at the time and there was a lot,” recalls Tobin, 40, mother of two young girls and controller for a packaging company in Oaks, Pennsylvania. “You don’t feel well, you eat and then you don’t feel well because you ate. At the end of the day, I don’t think eating a bag of pretzels and dip will change the outcome of how you feel about your life.”

Feeling lethargic and low on energy, Tobin divided her weight-loss strategy into manageable steps that included incorporating healthier foods into her diet, exercising, maintaining a food diary and evaluating the emotional triggers that spurred her to overeat.

“I had to find a different way, when I was feeling down or depressed, to not automatically turn to food. One day I just made a decision,” notes Tobin. “I broke it up into small goals so it wasn’t such a daunting task.”

A simple mental exercise to help you achieve your weight-loss goals is substituting “self-compassion breaks” in lieu of food breaks. Germer suggests that you find a quiet place, put your hand on your heart, take three deep breaths and tell yourself you are in a moment of suffering (mindfulness), that suffering is a part of everyone’s life (common humanity) and that you want to be kind to yourself (self-kindness).

This type of self-compassion, explains Germer, is a self-soothing alternative to food. “These practices can interrupt the automatic connection between stress and eating,” he says.

Releasing Weight

As the handsome star of the popular soap opera “One Life to Live,” Freeman Michaels based his success on how the world perceived him. After leaving acting behind in the mid-1990s, a thriving real estate development company provided Michaels with that same sense of security. “I thought if I was famous, I’d be happy. I thought if I was rich, I’d be happy,” says Michaels. But when his business failed during the real estate crash, his weight ballooned to nearly 280 pounds.

A self-described “latchkey kid,” Michaels admits that he has turned to food for comfort during much of his life. “I ate my way through my troubles. All these attempts in my life to make it from the outside in were never sustainable,” he says. “At no point was I ever really okay, not with myself and not with my eating.”

A speaker, workshop trainer and author of Weight Release: A Liberating Journey (Morgan James), Michaels received a masters degree in spiritual psychology and founded the Service to Self Process (www.servicetoself.com), a life coaching program that helps clients examine food-related behaviors, explore “self-honoring” alternatives and create healthy practices that ultimately become habits.

“A lot of us are feeding something inside. It can be an expression of rebelling, of deflecting unwanted attention, of abuse,” says Michaels. “What we do today is the process of applying compassion to the part of us that hurts. The minute we apply compassion, it lifts.” Instead of reacting from the painful past, Michaels suggests creating healthy rituals such as walking and meditating, generating intention between bites by focusing on healthy food choices, and writing down a list of wholesome foods along with their health benefits for extra motivation.

Learning to break free from mindless, emotionally driven eating—and the self-blame it creates—may feel a little awkward at first if you have always reached for cookies in times of crisis. But Tobin and Michaels say they are living proof that the results are well worth the effort. “When you do something repeatedly, over time it becomes easier to do,” says Michaels. “Compassion allows us to see clearly. It’s a healing journey.”

Color therapy may help you step out of the shadows and into a healthier light.

by Susan Weiner, Energy Times

It’s no coincidence that most fast-food restaurants are decorated with vivid reds and oranges. Market researchers know that these bright colors encourage diners to eat quickly and leave.

Using color to influence people is not new. Thousands of years before the rise of modern marketing, Egyptians, Greeks and Chinese routinely used colors to treat various emotional and physical maladies. In India, color therapy remains an integral part of Ayurvedic medicine, which describes the body as having seven main chakras or spiritual centers. Each chakra is associated with a color; imbalances result in ailments that can be corrected using different hues.

In the US, interest in therapeutic color developed during the 19th and 20th centuries, when professionals began publishing papers on the subject. Today, color therapy—also referred
to as chromotherapy, cromatherapy or colorology—is used by trained practitioners to promote health

A testament to the influence of color may be that the mere mention of army green, robin egg blue, baby pink, tomato red and school bus yellow can elicit distinct imagery, memories and sensations. Colors have been found to enhance cognitive function and spark creativity. When 600 volunteers at the University of British Columbia performed tasks with words or images displayed against red, blue or neutral backgrounds, red was found to help people recall words and details, while blue sparked imagination and creativity (Science 2/27/09).

In public settings, color lighting can be used to manipulate behavior. In one study, researchers created lounges decorated in blue, red or yellow. While more people were drawn to the yellow and red rooms, guests lingered longer in the blue room. Red and yellow guests were more social, and although yellow guests consumed twice as much food, red guests reported feeling hungrier and thirstier than the others (Contract 12/1/07).

Color’s powerful effects come from the vibrations associated with different segments of the color spectrum. Seen naturally in rainbows or in light refracted through a prism, colors represent different wavelengths of light from red on one end through orange, yellow, green and blue to violet on the other end. Each color vibrates at a specific frequency; chromotherapists believe that the body’s tissues also vibrate at specific frequencies. They contend that color is like a vitamin: Just as a vitamin deficiency requires a nutritional boost, an increase in color can be used to treat symptoms of conditions such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks, sleep deprivation, stomach problems, addictions and allergies.

Color therapy is not currently regulated by one central credentialing agency. However, the International Association of Colour (IAC) in Cambridge, England (www.iac-colour.co.uk), a professional association for chromotherapy healers, is affiliated with various complementary health associations. “As far as I can tell, each school has its own requirements,” says Arlene Arnold, a certified color therapist in Vancouver, Washington. Her color therapy course incorporates in-person or online training, a two-day practicum, 15 documented free sessions, a final exam and three monitored sessions (www.ThePowerofColor.com). “Once I believe they really understand the program, then I’ll certify them,” she says.

Therapeutic color encompasses a number of techniques. “Some of the modalities include shining colored lights on a person, being in a room painted a particular color, wearing certain colored clothing, imaging colors shining upon you while sitting still, eating fruits and vegetables of certain colors and wearing color therapy glasses,” says Donna Reis, CNHP, Certified Chromatologist and founder of Color Vibration in Fort Worth, Texas (www.colorvibration.com).

An advisor to a school for autistic children, Reis counsels family members on the use of color. “With autism, it is very important to avoid the color orange, as it is very upsetting emotionally,” notes Reis. “Autistic individuals respond very well to the color blue, however. You can dress them in blue and paint their bedrooms blue, and blue sheets are helpful for good rest. Be sure to use a pale blue, not a deep, dark blue.” Reis suggests that caretakers of those with Alzheimer’s disease draw on the color yellow, saying, “If you paint the doors yellow, they won’t try to leave.”

There is more to the phrase “feeling blue” than meets the eye, since the color blue may exacerbate depression’s sadness. “Orange is a wonderful color to introduce; however, depression can stem from a traumatic issue, so those folks can’t handle the energy of orange,” Reis says. Instead, practitioners would diffuse medical-grade orange aromatherapy oil into the environment or apply yellow color therapy light to the lung area. “Our lungs are our grief center and yellow is the color of elimination,” Reis explains.

In addition to color healing therapies, different hues can be used architecturally in terms of “color ergonomics—the psycho-therapeutic effects of color in the environment,” says Frank Mahnke, president of the International Association of Color Consultants/Designers (www.iaccna.org). “The basic design consideration is to promote human welfare in the workplace, offices, industrial environments, educational facilities, healthcare environments, psychiatric facilities and residential design.”

When working with color, environmental designers consider four areas: psychological effects (mood reactions to different colors), neuropsychological aspects (how the brain processes and reacts to color), visual ergonomics (visual efficiency and comfort), and emotional effects (emotional reactions to color). “Therapy through color affects people every day, whether at work, regarding their health, learning or at home,” says Mahnke. “Although they are not designers, individuals can interpret for themselves the psychological affects or visual language of color and pay attention to the visual ergonomics.” On a practical level, this means taking such steps as painting your kitchen blue (or putting a blue light in your refrigerator) to curb your appetite or using orange in your home décor to lift your spirits.

Using the right colors just might make your life, well, more colorful—and contribute to your emotional and physical well-being.