1% Thursday: Illustrate your Experience

This week, draw a picture illustrating your headache, cluster headache and/or migraine symptoms.  If possible, share it with someone.

Using art in the diagnosis, research and treatment of various diseases has a long and glorious history.  There are good reasons why art is so powerful – and good reasons why you should be using it to your advantage.

We’ve talked before about having children "draw their headache" – how and why.  One of the whys is because children can often express things through art that they can’t express through words.

But the truth is, we all express things through art forms of various kinds that we for whatever reason have trouble expressing in words.  Art such as drawing, photography, photo manipulation, painting, but also poetry, music – even body language and story telling.

But this week I recommend using the visual arts.  Illustrate, in some way, your experience – draw your symptoms, or your frustrations, or whatever comes to mind.

In the end, you may find you have something valuable to share with your doctor.  Or, maybe you’ve just clarified something in your own mind that will make it easier to express in words the next opportunity.

If not your doctor, share it with a family member or friend.  Or, share it with us!

What is 1% Thursday?

Every Thursday at Headache and Migraine News (weather permitting) we’ll talk about one measurable, practical thing we can do to make our lives just 1% better.  Usually it will be something very easy, sometimes it will be a challenge.  Let us know if you try it, or share an idea of your own – and maybe a year from now we’ll see that things have really changed for the better!