The Grichter Scale of Migraine Headache Intensity

Migraine Headaches Feel Like This.

Migraine Headaches Feel Like This.

Most of my life I’ve suffered from debilitating migraine headaches.

Now that you feel all sorry for me, here’s the helpful scale I came up with for rating their intensity. It’s pi-exponential so the pain slightly more than triples with each increment:

0: No pain, no gain

1: Slightly tense, no worries

2: Is that a headache coming on?

3: Push through; keep working

4: Starting to feel anxious about this

5: Just on the good side of bad

6: Get really distracting now

7: Remember to breathe

8: Take painkillers

9: With codeine

10: Call mom

11: Nausea, vomiting, want to die… Continue reading…

Frowny

How To Be Unhappy

There are a lot of happy people in the world today. Sure, we all have difficulties now and then, but for the most part we live at a time when we have more opportunity, greater personal safety and a longer life expectancy than any time in history. So many of us have the potential to be quite happy.

Smiley

Learn To Turn This…

This is a big problem for advertisers and companies marketing products at us that we don’t really need. Most advertising targets areas of dissatisfaction in our lives, suggesting that we fill the void or distract ourselves from our pain by purchasing products of little intrinsic value. The happier we are, the harder advertisers have to work to convince us that we need that new car, can of cola, or aftershave in order to attract the people we want into our lives. And major pharmaceutical manufacturers would go out of business if we all felt happy and didn’t need to rely on the latest round of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications. Wealthy shareholders are suffering as a result.

To help address these problems, here are my tips on How to be Unhappy:

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