Tag: exercise

Coping, Exercise, Treatment

A Joyous Return to Yoga

Kerrie Smyres

Last week I went to my first yoga class in more than a year. It was amazing.

My body felt better. My mind felt better. My head even felt a little better. At home, my practice is always half-hearted and rushed. It is more about getting through what I need to do. What I’ve always loved about yoga is focusing on the good my body can do instead of how my health drags me down. I feel strong and whole. I haven’t found that in my home practice, but I felt it in class.

Maybe because I felt safe with the teacher walking me through everything I had to do. I pushed myself, but gently. My neck and shoulders, already loosened up after a massage on Monday, felt better than they have in a year. Seriously.

Having only a few good hours most days, usually in the morning, has kept me from class. If I devote that time to class, then I don’t get anything else done. Tuesday I went to class, then had a great rest of the day. More energy and strength followed. I got my good hours and then some.

Maybe it was a fluke, but Monday and Tuesday were great days. I felt good physically and mentally. I’d like to attribute it to massage and yoga. Or maybe it was the return to exercise, as not exercising contributes to headaches. (Although I doubt one day made much difference!)

In any case, I’ve planned a new routine. Such plans aren’t usually successful for me, but I think I can do this. Massage at 9:30 a.m. Monday and yoga in that time slot on Tuesday and Thursday.

Just like that I swung from despair to hopefulness. I’m trying to temper my excitement, but it is hard. Not only did I do something I love last week, I think it actually helped my head. *fingers crossed*

Coping, Treatment

Yoga Isn’t Optional

Kerrie Smyres

It was 5:30 Saturday morning and I couldn’t sleep. Knowing I wouldn’t wake up early enough to go to the farmers’ market before yoga, I debated which one to go to. Images of the apple hatch chile cobbler I would make from my market spoils evaporated as I recognized that yoga is not optional. It was an astonishing revelation. The surprise wasn’t in the realization itself, but from the fact that it had never occurred to me before.

I usually feel better after yoga than I do after acupuncture, physical therapy or visits with my doctor, yet yoga doesn’t have the same priority as medical appointments, which are practically sacred. I schedule appointments for the time of day I’ve been feeling best, arrange back-up transportation in case I’m not up for driving, and only cancel if I am absolutely certain I will be miserable if I go. I’d never skip an acupuncture appointment to go to a baseball game, but I have chosen baseball over yoga before. Psychologically, I treated yoga as a fun (and thus optional) activity, not a health necessity.

Getting to class regularly was as simple as shifting yoga into the mental category of mandatory medical activity. I initially worried that medicalizing something I love would hinder my enjoyment of it, then the simple beauty emerged: Migraine allows me to spend 90 minutes a day in one of my favorite activities. If I were healthy, I’d be rushing to maximize 30-minute workouts, thinking that an hour and a half of yoga each day was a wasteful indulgence.

Chronic Migraine, Exercise, Triggers

Pedometer Apps: Highlighting My Substandard Exercise Acheivements

Kerrie Smyres

Exercising outside is one of the most enticing parts of summer in Seattle. To avoid triggering a migraine attack, I wanted to keep my exertion level about the same as it has been on the treadmill at home, so I downloaded some pedometer apps for my phone.

How demoralizing! These apps are designed to encourage healthy people whose only obstacle is a lack of motivation to get moving. They aren’t intended for someone who desperately wants to exercise more, but has to be very careful not to overdo it. The app I used first has a preset goal of 10,000 steps a day with a scale indicating what my level of fitness is.* After 2,200 steps, that scale still declares me “sedentary.” Trust me, I KNOW I’m sedentary and that walking a 20 minute mile doesn’t constitute impressive exercise. I don’t need an app to remind me that the best I can do right now is substandard.

Instead of feeling good about the one mile that I walked — and the beautiful view of Lake Washington that I glimpsed — I came home nearly in tears. I want to be physically fit. I want to walk 10,000 steps a day. I want to leave a yoga class with my muscles aching. I want to run for miles. Yet, what I want and what my body can currently handle are not in alignment.

Couch-to-5k? A hardcore seven-minute high-intensity interval workout? I’m there. Well, I would be if my body didn’t react with a migraine that would lead to at least three days on the couch. Trying harder, exerting more is a perfectly fine option for a lot of people. For me, it’s counterproductive.

I’ve (mostly) let go of the belief that having chronic migraine means my body is broken. Carrying around that sense of betrayal constantly highlighted what was lacking in my life and my body. Rather than dwell on what I can’t do, I try to revel in what I can do. That works most of the time. Then I use an app that reminds me that even though I’m exerting myself at my current maximum, my effort — and perhaps my very self — is deficient.

*I know these apps are intended to count one’s total daily steps and I’m only using them for active exercise. If I carried my phone around with me constantly and saw the steps around the house add up, I’d either be pleasantly surprised or even more dismayed. I choose ignorance.

Coping, Exercise

Motivating Yourself to Exercise

Kerrie Smyres

Even if you swear off New Year’s resolutions, thoughts of exercising may still nag at you. Not only because it is something everyone should do, but because it’s a vital component to managing migraine and CDH.

Feeling terrible is an obvious roadblock, but motivation can hinder you more. ExerciseFriends may help you overcome this obstacle. The free site helps you find people to exercise with in your neighborhood or you can simply chat with others online. The partner search includes profiles and ages of possible buddies. You can narrow your search to males only, females only or both.

Making a commitment to exercise with others is almost impossible for me. I have to cancel more often than not, so the forums seem to be a better option. My best motivation was when I checked in with a friend who I talked to almost every day.

We don’t talk as much anymore, so ExerciseFriends may be another place to say, “Yes, I exercised today. I met my goal of walking X miles.” The current posts don’t really lend themselves to this, but starting a daily role call type thread would serve the purpose. Even if no one else posts to it, the public reporting can kick you into gear. In fact, whenever I convince myself to walk next, I’ll start a thread on the support forum.

Coping, Exercise

Exercise-Triggered Migraine Attacks

Kerrie Smyres

A half mile in 10 minutes on the treadmill, a gentle yoga class and dancing at a wedding. What do these three activities have in common? They’ve all triggered migraine attacks in the last month. It seems so unfair to get a migraine when I’m doing something good for my body — especially when that’s celebrating at a wedding! Alas, dwelling on what’s fair can only lead to a pity party. Time to figure out how to cope.

Following Diana Lee’s recommendations for coping with exercise as a migraine trigger, I plan to start with a slow 10 minutes a day on the treadmill, then increase my speed and duration gradually each week. Of course, this assumes an upward trajectory of migraine improvement. The reality of life with chronic migraine will probably intervene. (Is that pessimistic or merely realistic?)

A friend gets exercise-induced migraines whenever she starts running again after falling out of her routine. She just puts up with them for three weeks and then they stop. Although my general philosophy is to avoid migraines as much as possible, I might use her strategy for yoga. First, though, I’ll try backing off a bit in class tonight. I felt so good at my last class that maybe I just pushed too hard.

Once again I appear to be in need of balance. Why is that such a difficult lesson to learn?