Make Your Desk More Migraine-Friendly: 7 Tiny Upgrades That Can Change Your Working Day

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Could your desk be making migraine worse?

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Welcome to Migraine Heroes, a podcast for anyone living with migraine and wondering

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why nothing has fully worked yet.

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I'm Diane Ducarme.

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Over the past 7 years, I've helped hundreds of people living with migraine.

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What I've learned?

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No two migraine stories are exactly the same, and none of them are simple.

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That is why, in this podcast, we explore migraine from many different angles.

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Food, hormones, stress, sleep, the nervous system, emotions, and much more, through the

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lens of both modern science and traditional Chinese medicine.

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A quick note before we start.

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What we talk about here is educational.

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For anything related to diagnosis or medication, please keep working with your doctor.

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Now, take a breath, and let's dive in.

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In this episode, you will learn how to spot the small things around your desk, your light,

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your screen position, noise, and even where you keep your water that may quietly be making

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your working day harder than it needs to be.

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Seven practical, low-cost workspace upgrades, so you can experiment without turning your

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office upside down.

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And one Diane special on how one sheet of paper can drastically change your productivity.

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Stay with me till the end, because at the end of this episode, you will know one of

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my best migraine-friendly productivity hacks.

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So I've recently moved back to Belgium after 20 years abroad, a solid decade in New Zealand,

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5 years in China, where I first met Dr. Zhang, a couple of years in Boston, while I was studying

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at Harvard, and South Africa before.

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And because we have just moved, I currently have something I almost never have, which

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is a nearly empty office.

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Our shipment is still somewhere between countries and oceans, so there is not much here yet.

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And strangely enough, I'm really loving that, because it is forcing me to ask, what do I

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actually want around me when I work?

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Where should my screen be?

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Do I want to sit all day?

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Where should the light come from?

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What do I want within arm's reach?

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What makes me feel focused?

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And what creates unnecessary sensory noise?

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And it made me think about all of you, who are not simply trying to get through your

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emails, meetings, and deadlines.

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You're also doing all of that, while also managing a brain that may be more sensitive

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to light, sound, smell, visual stimulation, neck discomfort, hunger, dehydration, and

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changes in routine.

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And that's a lot.

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And sometimes, we focus so much on the big migraine questions, that we overlook the tiny,

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tiny things surrounding us for 6, 8, or 10 hours every single day.

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So research into migraine and the workspace suggests that environmental factors and workplace

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accommodations can matter.

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Light sensitivity is particularly well-documented in migraine, while noise, smells, prolonged

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screen use, and musculoskeletal discomfort may also contribute to the burden experienced

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by some people.

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So for this episode, I'm going to stay very practical and pragmatic.

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We're not necessarily going East vs West today.

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Instead, I want to walk you through 7 things you can do to make your desk and your workstation

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more pleasurable, more supportive, and as migraine-proof as possible.

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Number 1.

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Create your Kettle Dock So this is my first one, and it's ridiculously

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simple.

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Put a kettle within reach.

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So not 3 rooms away, not downstairs, not somewhere that requires you to think, I will get some

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water after I finish this email, and then suddenly it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

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I mean physically within easy reach of where you work, if it is safe of course to do so.

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So have a mug there, have your water there, have whatever gentle infusion you enjoy there.

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Create a little happy hydration station.

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You could have a small tray with your kettle, mug or a couple of teas or infusions you know

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you tolerate well.

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Nothing fancy, you're just removing friction.

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Because the easier something is to do, the more likely you're going to actually do it.

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And migraine lifestyle guidance often emphasizes keeping hydration and daily routines relatively

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consistent.

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But knowing that, and actually remembering to drink when you are absorbed in work or

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in back-to-back meetings are two very different things.

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So make the environment do something of the remembering for you.

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So instead of telling yourself, I really should drink more, your kettle is sitting

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there saying, hey, I'm right here.

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So for me, warm water works beautifully.

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For you, it might simply be a bottle you genuinely enjoy drinking from.

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The point is not the perfect drink, the point is proximity.

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And make the helpful thing the easy thing.

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Now one little side note, because we're going to create a healthy hydration station, let's

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do it properly.

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If you're buying or choosing a kettle, my preference is glass or stainless steel rather

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than plastic.

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Why?

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Because hygiene matters.

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Research has shown that some plastic kettles can release large numbers of tiny plastic

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particles into water during boiling.

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And although many modern kettles are made without bisphenol A, plastics often contain

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different additives and chemicals used in food contact plastics that can migrate into

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what we eat or what we drink.

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And so the European food safety authorities have also substantially tightened their assessment

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of bisphenol A because of concerns about its effects on the immune system and other biological

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symptoms.

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So I'm not saying that one cup of hot water from a plastic kettle causes a migraine, that

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would be far too simplistic.

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I'm simply saying if you're choosing a kettle anyway, why add an exposure to toxins that

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you can really easily avoid?

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Go glass or stainless steel, simple.

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And while we're here, for your hydration station, I would choose a still water rather than sparkling

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water.

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Carbonation can create more gas, belching and bloating, and can aggravate reflux-like

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symptoms in some people.

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I have other episodes where we can go much deeper into digestion and migraine, so I'm

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not going to go down that path today.

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And finally, skip the ice-cold water.

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So this one is particularly interesting for migraine because very cold drinks can stimulate

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the palate and trigeminal pathways and provoke what researchers call a cold stimulus headache.

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So people with active migraine appear to be more susceptible to that response and it triggers

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me to do a podcast on that topic because it's a really important one, especially if

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you live in the US and exposed to a lot of cold water.

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So my simple rule is, warm water if you enjoy it, room temperature water if you don't, and

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also room temperature if it's really hot outside.

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You don't have to turn hydration into another complicated health project.

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Glass or stainless steel kettle, still water, warm or room temperature, keep it within reach.

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Done.

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Number 2.

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Give your screen an elevator.

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So my second one is already happening in my new office.

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I'm putting my laptop on a stand so that the screen comes up towards my eye level.

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I think of it as giving your screen its own little elevator and you absolutely do not

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need to buy something expensive.

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A simple laptop stand can work, a stable box can work, even a couple of side books can

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work if the setup is safe and comfortable.

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The important thing is to notice what your body is doing when you work.

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Where is your head?

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Where is your chin?

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Are your shoulders slowly creeping towards your ears?

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Are you spending hours leaning towards your laptop like this?

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You know the position, right?

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The laptop turtle.

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The head forward, the shoulders rounded, the eyes staring down.

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Neck discomfort is extremely common among people living with migraine.

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It does not mean poor posture is the cause of migraine, the relationship between migraine

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and neck pain is much more complicated than that, but if your nervous system is already

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having a difficult day, adding hours of unnecessary muscular tension is unlikely to make the day

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more comfortable.

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And there is actually another reason why I personally prefer lifting my screen rather

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than simply buying a gigantic monitor.

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So during the COVID lockdown, I experimented with larger screens.

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And at first I thought, oh, this is wonderful.

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Look at all this space.

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I can have everything open, email here, documents there, browser there, spreadsheet over here.

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But eventually I realized something that for me, more screen also felt like more visual

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load.

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And there was simply more bright surface in front of my eyes that was really stimulating.

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And so I went in almost the opposite direction.

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I prefer a relatively small screen, but just higher.

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That gives me the posture benefit without surrounding myself with a wall of glowing

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pixels.

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Your ideal setup may be completely different.

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So experiment.

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But try one thing, bring the screen to you instead of bringing your head to the screen.

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Number three, build a soft light bubble.

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Now, let's talk about lighting.

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Because if you have migraine, you probably do not need me to explain how aggressive light

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can feel on the wrong day.

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Research published in Nature Neuroscience in 2010 already helped eliminate the biological

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pathways through which light can aggravate migraine headache.

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But the practical takeaway is not people with migraine should live in darkness.

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Please do not turn your office into a cave.

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It's actually a really important notion.

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Instead, you need to think control, softness, and contrast.

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Can you control the light around you?

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Is there a window directly behind your screen creating glare?

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Is there a bright overhead light shining down on you all day?

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Is your screen an enormous glowing rectangle in an otherwise dark room?

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Try create what I call a soft light bubble.

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An inexpensive desk lamp or a clip-on lamp can sometimes be much nicer than a harsh ceiling

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light.

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Adjust your desk so that daylight comes from the side rather than blasting directly into

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your eyes or reflecting from the screen.

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Tilt blinds rather than automatically closing them completely.

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Adjust your screen brightness.

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Increase your text size.

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And one of my favorites, remove visual clutter from your screen.

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You really need 17 tabs, 5 notification bubbles, and 3 applications flashing it to simultaneously

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close things.

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I'll go even further.

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I personally take one to-do, and you're going to see in my advice 7, I take one to-do, and

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then I close all of my screens from the previous one, and then I'm just going to open what

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I need to execute that to-do.

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And once I'm done, I close all of my tabs, etc.

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That allows to reduce that stimulation.

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Because your visual environment does not need to shout at you all day.

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And I would also not obsess over one gadget marketed as the magical solution to blue light.

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Margarine and light are much more complicated than one color.

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Brightness matters.

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Contrast matters.

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Patterns matter.

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Duration matters.

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Individual sensitivity matters.

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What we're trying to create here is not a scientifically perfect lamp.

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We're trying to create the moment where your eyes say, ah, this is easier.

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Thank you.

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Okay, number 4.

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Make yourself a second cocoon.

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So next is sound.

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Imagine your brain sitting in an open office.

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Somebody's talking behind you, a telephone rings, a message arrives, someone starts the

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coffee machine, a meeting begins 10 meters away, maybe someone drops something, another

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notification arrives, your colleague asks you a question, and your brain has to continuously

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decide important, not important, important, actually urgent.

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And this is a lot of filtering.

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So create a sound cocoon when you need one.

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So that might be comfortable headphones.

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It might be an inexpensive reusable earplugs when appropriate and safe.

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It might simply be switching off notification sounds.

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It might mean choosing a seat slightly further from the printer, the kitchen, or busiest

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corridor.

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My personal favorite, absolute favorite, is a deep focus playlist.

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So this is something about putting on steady background music that tells my brain, we are

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working now.

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And I find particularly useful after an interruption.

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Someone speaks to you, you answer a message, your concentration disappears, and instead

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of having to rebuild focus from zero, I put the music back on and it becomes almost a

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little doorway back into concentration.

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These are music that allow for deep focus and concentration and they work brilliant.

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So you can even give yourself one particular playlist that you use only for focused work.

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Another one I have, so I have deep focus, I also have one that has an old name in my

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phone, it's called cardio and it's literally like techno music that I would use to run

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and that's when I really feel like I need to work and I feel tired and that gives me

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a sudden rush of energy.

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So over time, that sound can become a cue, so this is my quiet working space now.

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Again, we're not trying to eliminate a sound from life, we're trying to create choice.

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Number five, build your neck shield.

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Here's something incredibly simple that I want you to keep in your drawer.

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A layer for your neck, a soft turtleneck, a scarf, a high neck cardigan, a jacket that

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closes higher around your neck, something that you can pull out when your environment

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suddenly becomes too cold because the neck is an incredibly important area in migraine.

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Neck pain, neck stiffness and tenderness are very common in people with migraine and the

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nerve pathways coming from the upper neck communicate very closely with the trigeminal

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pathways involved in migraine pain.

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I'm not going to take you down that neurological explanation today, we will do that in another

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episode and there are some episodes already about this topic, but the practical message

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is pay attention to what your neck is experiencing, especially cold hair blowing directly onto

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it.

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So maybe you're comfortable at your desk and then you walk into a meeting room where the

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air conditioning is blasting or you sit underneath a ceiling vent or there's a fan pointing directly

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toward the back of your neck for three hours.

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And for some people living with migraine, temperature and changes in temperature appear

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to matter.

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The scientific evidence is mixed when researchers look at everybody with migraine together,

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but studies suggest there is a subgroup of people who are particularly temperature sensitive

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and usually also sort of wind sensitive.

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So if you already know that cold or moving air around your neck bothers you, do not repeatedly

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expose yourself to it just because everybody else in the meeting room seems perfectly comfortable.

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Protect your neck.

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So I learned this one really personally many years ago.

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I was working regularly with a CEO who liked the office extraordinarily cold.

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And when we worked together, the temperature needed to be around 18 degrees Celsius or

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64 degrees Fahrenheit.

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And I remember being absolutely freezing.

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I'm somebody who gets cold very easily.

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So I developed my own little system.

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I would have a turtleneck ready and then I could put a smart jacket over it.

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I could still walk into the meeting looking professional and put together, but underneath,

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I had essentially created my own little thermal armor because otherwise my concentration would

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drop too.

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It is harder to concentrate if your body needs to fight to regulate its body temperature.

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And there is actually something interesting behind this difference in office comfort.

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Many traditional office temperature calculations were developed using metabolic assumptions

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based on the average male body.

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Research published in Nature Climate Change found that those assumptions could substantially

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overestimate women's metabolic rates.

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And later research looking at tens of thousands of office workers found that women were much

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more likely to men to report being too cold, particularly in an overcooled office.

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So if you've spent your career thinking, why am I freezing while everyone around seems

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to be absolutely fine, you're certainly not the only one.

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This is why I love this idea of keeping the neck shield in your office.

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Number six, build your escape hatch.

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This may be one of the most important things on your desk, and it's not really a thing

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at all.

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It's a plan.

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Every migraine-friendly workspace needs an escape hatch.

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What will you do when your body whispers, things are starting to go wrong?

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Not when the migraine has become enormous earlier.

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Maybe your eyes suddenly feel tired.

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Maybe words become more difficult to process.

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Maybe your neck feels different.

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Maybe sounds suddenly feel too loud.

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Maybe smells become stronger.

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Maybe you start yawning.

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Maybe concentration disappears.

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Some of these experiences can actually be early migraine symptoms rather than outside

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triggers.

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So decide your escape hatch before you need it.

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Maybe yours is five minutes away from the screen, a drink, a small snack if you need

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one, a short walk, a quieter room, closing your eyes for a few minutes.

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Maybe your medically appropriate migraine treatment, according to the plan you have

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established with your doctor.

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You could even keep a tiny recovery basket nearby.

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Nothing glamorous.

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Perhaps a simple snack you know you tolerate, an eye mask if you feel it's helpful to

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you, your headphones, whatever belongs in your plan.

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The power here is that you do not have to make decisions when your brain is already

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struggling.

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The decision has already been made.

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When I notice my early signs, this is what I do.

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So if you work with somebody else, your escape hatch may also involve a conversation about

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flexibility, quieter working space, or appropriate workplace accommodations.

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You should not have to wait until you're completely incapacitated before responding

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to what your body is telling you.

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So let me ask you a few questions, and you can just answer in your head.

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When things start going wrong at your desk, what do you notice first?

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Tired or dry eyes?

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Sounds suddenly too loud?

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Or your neck tightening?

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Does it tend to come on after a short night, a stressful morning, or a skipped lunch?

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In that moment, do you feel more wound up and irritated, or more foggy and drained?

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Now, two people at the same desk can need completely different escape hatches.

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If your neck tightens, and you get wound up, a few neck stretches may be what helps most.

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If you go foggy and drained, a warm drink and a tour around the block may matter far

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more.

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Those answers are also clues to your starting migraine pattern.

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So in the Migraine Heroes method, we look at your migraine from the same angles a practitioner

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would.

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Where do you feel it?

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What comes with it?

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What's going on around it?

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And how do you feel during it?

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And so in the app, a few steps in, you'll get a first look at your starting pattern.

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And the better you know your own early signs, the sooner your escape hatch and other supportive

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tools can kick in.

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I often tell people, the really first step of recovery is understanding.

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I tried to help you achieve that personally.

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I worked really hard on it in the first steps of the Migraine Heroes app.

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This is a green one with a yellow love heart in the brain.

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It's a beautiful logo, gorgeous, done with a migraine sufferer.

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And number seven, build a migraine-friendly to-do list.

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So the last one is very personal.

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I have used this system for more than a year now, and it works really well.

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So I have a simple weekly template in Canva.

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You could also make it in PowerPoint or in paper, and I will share mine in the show notes.

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And at the top, I write my top three, the three things that really need to move forward

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that week.

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Then I divide everything else into four boxes that are called rocks, pebbles, sand, and

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administration.

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And it comes from the old jar metaphor that if you fill a jar with sand first, there is

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no room for the big rocks.

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But if you put the rocks in first, then the pebbles and the sand will fit around them.

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And so I use the same principle with energy.

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My rocks are the tasks that need my clearest brain, writing, thinking, strategy, big decisions.

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My pebbles need focus, but less mental energy.

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And my sand is made up of small tasks that I can do when I'm tired or in some pain or

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when I'm being interrupted.

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And administration is all of that life stuff.

[19:45]

The children appointments, the housing stuff, the forms, the bookings.

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So I'm a morning person, so I try to do my rocks first, sometimes before I even open

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my phone.

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The best time of the day, super productive.

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In the afternoon, I move towards the pebbles after lunch when my energy is a little bit

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lower, but I'm still alone in the home.

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And when the children come back from home, it's all sand and administration work.

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Because those tasks can tolerate massive numbers of interruptions.

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The beauty of this system is that you stop measuring yourself only by hours worked.

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Migraine, children, illness, and life can completely disrupt your schedule.

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Instead, you ask, given the energy I have today, what can I do to still move forward

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without pushing too hard?

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So when I moved from New Zealand to Brussels, this little printed sheet was one of the only

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things I kept with me from my desk.

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So I printed about seven or eight, and it gave me a sense of consistency when everything

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else was changing.

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I use one each week, and sometimes I even rewrite it halfway through my week to reset

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my priorities.

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And because I have a lot of things that are done and some things added, so I rearrange

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it midweek.

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So print mine, copy it or create your own, protect your rocks while your brain is clear,

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and when your energy drops, move to the pebbles, and it's really low or scattered or interrupted,

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do your sand and your admin.

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And at the end of the week, don't just ask, how much did I work?

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Ask, what did I actually move forward?

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And there is another benefit.

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This approach can lower frustration and build self-esteem, both of which matter enormously

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when you live with migraine.

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So this is not just about getting more done.

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It's also about feeling less defeated, more capable, and more in control.

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And when that happens, your brain may genuinely feel a little happier too.

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So what can you do today from your home?

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Do not do all seven.

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Choose one or two ideas that made you think, yes, that would help me.

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Try them for a week.

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Then ask, did this make my working day easier?

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Not perfect, not migraine-proof, just easier.

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If it helps, keep it.

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And then listen to this episode again and choose another two.

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Small changes, less pressure, better support for your brain.

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That's all for today.

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I hope this episode added another piece to your migraine puzzle.

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If you'd like to apply what we've discussed to your own life, you can find us by searching

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Migraine Heroes in the App Store or Google Play.

[22:05]

Look for the green icon with the love heart in the brain.

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Migraine is complex, but it's not random.

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And every step forward brings us closer to lasting relief.

[22:15]

Your body has a story to tell.

[22:17]

Let's keep listening.

[22:18]

I will be back with you soon.