Can Weather Cause Headaches?
A classic form of neuroplastic pain / symptoms is a symptom that comes on due to weather, like the very common one of headaches on cloudy / rainy days.
Physiologically, most of the time the body is not structurally endangered in any way by weather changes.
There is a collective belief that a cloudy/rainy day can cause headaches or migraines. Whether or not you get headaches, you’ve heard of this, right? So the story is pretty strong.
Let’s say that one day say you get a headache out of the blue, but then you realize it is a cloudy day! “Ah-ha! Makes sense,” you think, even though this was never an issue for you before. You do a little Google search to confirm that it’s a thing. (Your brain is making a note of all this information subconsciously.) You have a less-than-great day due to the headache, and maybe you even miss out on an activity. “Ugh.”
On the next cloudy day, you think, “Oh boy, what if I get another headache like last time?” Unfortunately, you do. It’s a distressing trend, even if it’s just low-grade. Now instead of feeling cozy on cloudy days, you are in pain (or at least worried about it coming on) and can’t enjoy them as much anymore.
Your brain has (unconsciously) done what it thinks is expected and interprets the pressure change, light quality, and general vibe of the weather as dangerous and therefore painful. In addition, now you have some level of fear — you worry about cloudy days because they “give you headaches”, and you fear the headache because it puts a damper on your day. Headaches on cloudy days is now a conditioned response reinforced by fear.
We call this the self-reinforcing Fear-Pain cycle. Fear begets pain begets more fear begets more pain…
It helps to know that the weather is not actually a problem that is causing you physical pain; it’s just a misunderstanding in the brain’s processing of neutral sensations and collective cultural beliefs.
So what to do about it? Unlearning the fear and anticipation will weaken and eventually break the Fear-Pain cycle. With time, the pain will dissipate and you will just be left with the neutral sensations of weather changes, and perhaps you will be able to even enjoy them again.
Pain Reprocessing Therapy is a process by which you can break the fear-pain cycle and teach your brain to properly assess neutral stimuli as safe instead of dangerous. Using PRT, you can unlearn the fear and anticipation which fuels neuroplastic pain.