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What if election nights, breaking news, and global crisis don't just stress you out,
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but actually shape the rhythm of your migraines?
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Migraine Heroes is a podcast for chronic migraine sufferers
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who've seen countless doctors with no results.
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Learn how to reduce your migraine attacks without endless medications or constant sacrifices.
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Hello, I'm Diane Ducarme. I've helped over 500 people break free from migraine,
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even after suffering for up to 60 years.
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My mission in life? To bring this relief to a million people
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using a unique blend of Eastern medicine and Western science.
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In this episode, you'll learn how political stress and world events
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can literally disrupt your sleep and biometrics.
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Why your nervous system reacts so strongly to fear, anger, and overexposure to the news cycle.
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What Eastern wisdom teaches us about protecting your mind and body in times of collective unrest.
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Stay with me till the end, because by the end of this episode,
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you'll understand why something as far away as an election in another country,
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or a war in another country, can feel like it's happening inside your own head.
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I will also share with you how I personally read, or do not read, the news.
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Let's start with watching the news and its impact on sleep.
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So, wearable device and biomarker studies show that during major political events,
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like elections, sleep quality significantly declines.
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A 2020 study in Sleep Health found that Americans slept 25 minutes less on election night,
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and their resting heart rate spiked the next day.
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Why does that matter?
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Poor sleep and increased arousal are two of the strongest predictors of migraine attacks in the West.
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Another study in Nature Human Behavior in 2017
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looked at stress biomarkers during the Trump-Clinton election,
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and people showed measurable increase in cortisol and disrupted circadian rhythms.
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And chronic disruption to cortisol balance isn't just stress,
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it actively sensitizes the migraine brain.
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It's not only elections.
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Wars, terrorist attacks, or even a relentless news cycle can create what is called
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second trauma when you read about violence, instability, or propaganda,
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and your body responds as if you were in danger yourself.
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Heart rate, blood pressure, amylda activity, and TMJ symptoms rise.
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For someone predisposed to migraine, this is like adding fuel to a fire already going on.
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Here are a few examples from our work at Migraine Heroes.
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These are women I know personally.
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I remember this Ukrainian woman living in the U.S.,
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and as we were working together, she was at some point struggling,
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and she shared her husband was still in Ukraine when the war broke out.
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Her fear, her resentment, her constant thinking and worry for him,
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and nightly news checking created this huge set of migraine attacks
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that were mirroring her emotional state.
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Then I remember this woman from Israel.
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After decades of being told to accept her pain and to medicate in silence,
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it was powerful to finally meet her, map her patterns, and see her migraines begin to ease.
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In her tracker, the progress was there,
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until suddenly being forced into bomb shelters in Israel that disrupted her newly gained stability.
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The stress reignited the migraines,
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showing how even when the body is physically safe,
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the nervous system can't always separate safety from threat.
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Since then and those two events, we do tackle that very proactively with Dulci,
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as that level of trauma and emotions can really impact migraine.
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When we see it, we act on it.
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Here's what's more, political stress is contagious.
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A 2019 study in Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences
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found that media exposure to political conflict increases anxiety and physiological stress,
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even when events are thousands of miles away.
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For migraine sufferers, this is like carrying someone else's tension on top of your own.
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So the science is clear. Political unrest is going to disrupt your sleep and circadian rhythms,
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elevate your stress hormones like cortisol, and spark inflammation and nervous system arousal,
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all of which can increase the intensity and frequency of your migraine attack overnight.
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In Eastern tradition, health is not only seen as an individual balance,
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but also as a response to your environment.
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In traditional transmedicine, excessive exposure to fear,
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anger or grief disrupts the delicate balance of organ systems connected to the brain.
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Fear is going to unsettle the kidney system, the root of our vitality and nervous system regulation.
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When fear lingers, the kidney system weakens,
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and with that, the sense of security that anchors the mind.
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Grief is going to burden the lung system.
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The lung is the organ of letting go and boundary with the world.
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When grief is unprocessed, the lungs tighten, their energy stagnates,
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and their connection with the kidney creates a loop of exhaustion and vulnerability.
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Together, weakened lungs and kidneys often manifest in the sinuses,
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this was what we observed day to day,
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pressure, congestion and headaches that feel inseparable from the weight of emotion.
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And meanwhile, we have the spleen, which governs digestion and thoughts,
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is going to weaken under the burden of constant information.
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In traditional transmedicine, this is called over-rumination.
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The more propaganda, advertising and non-stop media you absorb,
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the heavier and foggier your spleen becomes.
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That darkness shows up as brain fog, fatigue and yes, migraines.
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And here's the part that few people realize,
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it's not just elections or wars that trigger migraines,
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it's the way the information itself is delivered.
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Advertising and propaganda are designed to hijack your nervous system,
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to make you feel outrage, urgency or fear,
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so that you'll stay engaged, so that you'll read the article.
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But every time you take that bait, your stress hormones spike.
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For someone with migraine, that's like stepping into a storm.
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Eastern medicine reminds us, while we cannot control the world's chaos,
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we can control how much of it we let into our body and mind.
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And so let me share with you a non-political example
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that may apply directly to you in your life.
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Yesterday, just yesterday, I had dinner with an old family friend.
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She has a guinea pig ranch, which is quite uncommon,
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in which my daughter works once a week.
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And she's done that for several years.
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And we have her for dinner from time to time.
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She's honestly a sweetheart.
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She's vegetarian, by respect for animals.
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And so we always prepare a very nice vegetarian meal.
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So she's into animal welfare and Facebook understood that about her.
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They know that if they send her a video of an animal being poorly treated,
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like really mistreated. She gave me some really bad examples.
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I'm not going to give here.
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She's likely to give to that charity.
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And she was saying how hard it is now for her to undo these algorithms that trace her
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as they know how to trigger her emotions and open her wallet.
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So her computer knows how to trigger her on a weekly basis.
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Now, she does not suffer from migraine disease.
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And she already notices how much these videos can impact her emotional state and actions.
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Your empathy is a gift.
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But without boundaries, it can become your migraine trigger.
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I'll tell you very honestly something that all of my family members know.
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I don't read the press unless I need to make a decision with the given information,
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which happens, honestly, every five years or so.
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And you know what?
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If it's really important, people will actually talk to you about it and will let you know.
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The way they would relate the information will be less traumatizing than from the media.
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Journalism, don't get me wrong, is super important.
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It's just not the best for sensitive souls, empathetic souls, and people with migraines.
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I'm not saying it's a good thing.
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I'm just saying it's a protective mechanism I've had for a very long time.
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So some practical techniques include mindful media diet.
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You know, everyone's going to talk to you about your food diet.
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I want to talk about your media diet.
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Only consume news when it informs a decision, not when it feeds endless rumination, fear, or anger.
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Spot the bots, those robots and algorithms that feed your internet with the news that
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trigger you just like my old friend.
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Have a soothing ritual,
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a rom-com movie like I have, or a calming music, or a joyful walk.
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These aren't trivial.
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They reset your nervous system and soothe your Shen, your spirit.
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And then have ground practices,
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warm teas, breathing exercises, and gentle acupressure at points like the yin tang,
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the one just between your eyebrows, to calm an overactive mind.
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And remember, every small step you take moves you closer to freedom.
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You are resilient.
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And you are no longer alone.
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Keep rising, migraine hero.
