Sans Chocolat

I am not the healthiest person in the world. For the past two years, I have been getting migraines on a regular basis — meaning once a week like clockwork, and sometimes more than once a week. I don’t know what causes them, but I have a good feeling they’re hormone-related with some food and stress triggers thrown in. In a fit of inspiration earlier this year, I decided to write about the things I tend to focus on when trying to get healthy and happy: food, relaxation exercises, activism and animals.

Food

I love food. A lot. I think about food all day — even when I’m eating one meal, I think about how great my next one will be. I love to cook too, except right now my diet is somewhat restricted. Because I have an inkling that some of the migraines are food-related, I’m trying to stay away from foods that would exacerbate the problem. This includes chocolate, aged cheeses, alcohol, avocados, onions and peanut butter, as well as anything with nitrates. These are all known migraine-triggers in me or in the general migraine community. And there are plenty more.

I also try to stay away from foods made with artificial hormones because of the tendency for the migraines and my hormones to coincide. This means no meat from the grocery store unless it’s organic, and ditto for milk. And since organic meat is expensive, Seth and I eat meals with meat only once or twice a week, and the rest of the time we go vegetarian.

We’re also trying to buy as much organic stuff as possible, and trying to stay away from things made with partially hydrogenated oils, or really anything that’s not mostly natural. I’m sure you can imagine how crazy our food shopping experiences can be. But all of these little restrictions mean our meals taste much better — fewer chemicals make this migraineur’s body happier.

Relaxation Exercises

I used to fold cranes quite a bit. I fold less often now, but when I do, it makes me happy. It makes me calm. It also makes me feel like I’m doing something good for the world, which is necessary for me to feel like a productive member of society. I find that when I don’t contribute something, all I do is sit around, and that bothers me. I want to get to a point in my life where I’m healthy enough to finally focus on others instead of my health. But you know how it is — one thing at a time. So I do the little things when I can.

I’m also trying to get into exercising more (not to lose weight, mind you. I’m a big fan of the Health at Every Size movement. Here’s a question: why aren’t you a fan too?) as a way of relaxing my body. When I move, everything feels good. I feel like I’m cleansing my insides, which is a key proponent of getting rid of the migraines. As long as my body isn’t fighting to keep my body functioning normally, it’s fighting to get rid of the migraines (another reason why we eat organic. Why expend energy ridding my body of pesticides when that energy could go to a better use?).

Oh, and I write. And I play the piano, after a four year hiatus, which is kind of nice. So you’ll see me talk about that here too.

Activism

At heart, I’m an activist. If I could, I would never buy anything new again, and if I had to buy something new, it would come from etsy or a non-profit so I know the proceeds would go to something worthwhile. I would also volunteer at seven different charities, get involved with politics at night, and become a youth ambassador to the UN — in a perfect world.

Unfortunately, I don’t have that much spare time. That’s why I sometimes leave cranes lying around. It’s also why I work for a non-profit organization. Beyond that, my only activism comes from being a feminist and nicely explaining to people why what they’re doing/saying is offensive. Once I’m not threatened by migraines, I’ll have more energy to get involved in my free time. (Migraines really are a draining experience. I can feel lousy for up to 48 hours at a time because of one migraine. Multiply that by once a week, and it tends to make functioning difficult.)

Animals

This category could probably be absorbed into one of the others, but I feel it deserves at least a small explanation. I love animals. I have two cats. I used to work in an animal shelter. I tried to intern at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. I can become incredibly riled up over people who say they want a cat but then get a kitten — and not even from the animal shelter. Okay, let’s not get into that now. The point is, I love animals and they make me calm, and so occasionally I’ll talk about my cats. Or someone else’s cats, or their dog, or their pet parakeet or something. Just bear with me, okay? I really like animals.