Hormones and Chi

There is a forgotten art to the control of the mind and body.
I started like many did in my youth; I read a book about Harry Houdini that documented his ability to control his breathing and tolerance. A little known fact is that Houdini was terrified of water and considered it a personal challenge to publicly conquer his fear.
I had modest talent in that area, no. My expertise was pain and metabolic control.
I can think of a dozen examples when I have performed under extreme pain, oftentimes to my medical detriment, mostly as an oldschool dumb-as-rocks way of trying to prove myself.

Migraines are not pain in the sense I have dealt with in the past. Willpower does not make a migraine go away, meditation and diet change have very minimal results. I can see them coming but I can do nothing to stop them or cure them why then arrive.
So I commited myself to research until I could find some kind of answer.

I searched a variety of medical papers, a few mainstream articles and generally made a nerd of myself in the area. One of the things I noticed was a pronounced connection in many papers to hormones. It appears that migraines are indeed linked to hormonal imbalances (like many neurological problems.).
This reminded me of a paper I read several years back about the connection between the Taoist concept of “chi” and the daily hormonal cycle.

It was interesting but inconclusive, the Taoist “hotpoints” in the day coincided with peaks in hormone levels. Diet, meditation and tai chi also had very visible impacts on hormone levels. The theory of the paper was that the entire concept of “chi” or energy was merely the subtle control of hormones.
I rejected the thesis of the paper, one because it had no proof and two because science cannot proof faith. I have seen and felt energy in ways that it is beyond science to explain. But I admit the meat of the paper was compelling enough to remember all these years later.

Lets say your energy affects your body. Hormone levels would be one affected area. It might be possible with experimentation to control the hormones enough to prevent or even cure the migraines. It even explains the depression and mood swings that follow and precede each migraine attack.

Like many Taoists who practice consistently I have some degree of control over my bodies energy. I can’t snuff out candles with my fingertips or choke snide officers from another galaxy but I can profoundly change my body. I can metabolize faster, I can exceed my physical limits, and I can transcend pain and fatigue. Maybe I can control my hormone levels too.

I cannot with words describe how tired I am of being sick. I am literally completely disgusted by it. I want to sleep 8 hours without horrible mindbreaking nightmares. I want to close my eyes and not have those nightmares haunt my waking sight. I want to go to work and drive my car and go out and have fun like everyone else. Instead I am trapped inside avoiding the sunlight like a bug under a rock. I have changed so much in the last few years. But the core of who I am has stayed the same, my beliefs have been scorched by doubt and insecurity and neglect but they survived. My friendships have endured incredible stress and I have lost many of the things and people I loved.

It is for those last remaining; precious things that I have to commit myself to this.

One Hit KO

Several people have commented on the lack of activity. I feel I should explain the situation and remedy it as quickly as possible.

Two weeks ago I started getting headaches. Not minor headaches. Full-blown migraines.
My entire life I’ve rarely ever gotten headaches, and never migraines. I took some painkillers and went back to my day. Later that night I attended a LAN party and nearly passed out. Since then I have been in a cycle of slowly rising headaches followed by crippling migraines. As I have no health insurance and significant debt from my previous health problems I cannot see a doctor.

For me the migraine is perhaps the ultimate and most potent enemy. Years back when I was stronger I could simply will away a minor headache or shut down pain completely in an injured limb. It was one of a variety of interesting abilities I picked up in my life. Another was the ability to control my heart rate, body temp, breathing and metabolism.
Such gifts are wonderful and incredibly useful in many situations. They are however just that: Gifts.

They are gifts that require a certain outlook on life, they require a strong spirit and a soul free of artificial evils (I.E. Greed, lust, sloth. Etc). I became unworthy of them when I slipped into a selfish and ultimately self-damaging path. It requires an unconventional combination of perfectionist and zen guru to avoid excesses and focus on goals and self improvement.

At the LAN party I was playing Warcraft 3 when my migraine struck so fiercely that I nearly passed out. Warcraft 3 isn’t a regular game to me; I’m a champion at it. Literally.
I was playing my best race, with my beat hero on a map I knew very well.
The harder I would focus the more intense the migraine became. I was ambushed, pincer-ed and destroyed. It was by the barest of margins that I slipped my workers away and rebuilt.

My teammate was dead, my base was destroyed and my two heroes were level 4 and 3. My enemies (people I taught to play, so hardly weak) had 7 heroes over level 6 between the 4 of them. Each skirmish, each calculation turned the screws again until my body began to convulse. This would be where most people give up. But I kept building, kept scouting and kept planning.

Finally my chance arrived, In a spectacular battle I killed 5 enemy heroes, 2 full armies and the bases they were guarding. If I had been at full health it would’ve been an impossible feat. But with my arms violently shaking and my eyes filled with searing pain it surpassed anything within human capacity. I won that incredible but meaningless victory. Shortly afterwards the pain forced me to collapse.

The reason migraines are so awful is they get worse when you concentrate. The intense mental focus required for RTS games is one example of something not wise to do under a migraine attack. The harder I pushed myself the worse the migraine became. It might seem silly that I endured so much pain because of a game. But I feel that if anything is worth doing it is worth doing well. You should never quit something you love and you should never give up.

The gift to surpass your human limits, even for a short time is one that I lost from my own folly. It seems a tad unusual but I was able, for that one battle to surpass my limits in every way. I have freed myself from that terrible and haunting pain by the strength of my own spirit.

Up to this point I haven’t been able to write very well, but I am slowly learning to understand and control the headaches enough that I can resume a normal work and play.If I am right, willpower and soul are enough to overcome anything. Anything.