Stone Asks What's Up with the Workout/Headache

Stone asks:

Why do you get so many headaches? From what you have stated in the past, it seems to be a side effect of training. Due to the fact that the main working "muscle" of your job is your mind, don't you think this is a bad side effect? Maybe I'm ignorant, but I thought the purpose training (a.k.a "working out") was to make people feel and look better. I don't about the looks department (I'll leave that to Heather), but it doesn't seem (from your posts) that you consistently feel better.

Good questions. I do appreciate you asking because obviously you want me to be without the pain.

I've gotten migraines my whole life. Started when I was five years old, living in Italy. I was hooked up to one of those brainwave things and an ekg, put to sleep and monitored. Very sci-fi looking. I still remember the goopy gel they use to glue the electrodes to your scalp. They said I needed to stay away from hot dogs, cheddar cheese and hot dogs. Which made birthday parties a living hell... they always seemed to start with nacho chips, move on to hot dogs and end up with chocolate cake. For years I've tried to track things and find a cause/effect correlation. In fact, as you mentioned in another comment, I do have a headache log, but I keep it private, not wanting to inflict too much whining on everybody. I seem to average a headache once every nine days, which is actually an improvement. When I don't work out I seem to get more headaches, on the order of two a week.

As for the motivation for working out, it's to see what my body can do. In effect, to find the breaking point. I don't look better when I'm in racing form. Actually, Heather and the fam complain incessantly when I'm down at racing weight. And most days my body aches with whatever flavor of pain the last workout dished up. But it's fulfilling knowing that while I can't compete with the best in the world, I can push my body further and further. Each day/week/month/year I learn something about my body and that makes it worth it. Training is the process of breaking the body down. The body then builds itself up when you rest, but super-compensates and builds itself a little stronger than before.

The effect of headaches on work is a wash on work. I lose days every now and then. Which sucks, believe me. But the day after a headache I feel incredibly creative... basically excited to be able to think again. I appreciate the world more. Just a guess, but if I were to track the creative ideas that I output, I'd guess that most of them come the day after a headache day.

This probably doesn't make much sense to most. When epileptics are asked whether they'd push a button to get rid of their affliction, many say that they would not. The periods after epileptic fits are described as nirvana. I believe I experience something similar in the day after a headache. It contributes to my life overall.

And I've gotten used to them. Which isn't to say I don't bitch about them a lot. I think that you see that on the site a good bit. One of the things that always frustrates me about my writing is that it's about 5x easier to write about the things that are bothering me than about the things that are going well. I try to work on it.

Thanks again for the questions!