Shortening Daylight Helps My Migraine Prone Head

I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here, but I love falling back to standard time. In fact I think we ought to do away with the annual craziness of daylight saving time completely - not that my opinion on the subject matters. 

Still, I love that it gets dark earlier, especially as we approach Christmas because that allows me more time each day to enjoy my lights. However, the biggest reason I love the shortening of daylight this time of year is much more pragmatic - the sunshine is hard on my migraines. 

I'm very light sensitive. I've set up our house so that I can control the amount of sunlight that gets in but there is isn't much that I can do to control it when I'm not at home. No matter how dark my sunglasses and how wide brimmed my hat, I can't spend much time exposed to bright sunlight without triggering a migraine and causing my eyes to become inflamed and painfully angry. 

It can make being a guest in someone else's home tricky. Everyone I know loves light and their homes are brightened by big exposed windows and bright overhead lights. I certainly don't begrudge anyone their bright rooms. I know it's completely normal to want your house that way. But those bright spaces that please all the normal healthy people is hard on someone like me. 

So while the daylight hours are getting progressively shorter and troubling most people, I'm over here celebrating. Happy as can be about the relief darkness brings to my eyes and my head. Okay, so I don't have fewer migraines this time of year or anything like that. But I definitely feel the muscles around my eyes, forehead and temples relax a bit when the sun goes down. And when that happens at 5pm instead of 8pm, well that's 3 extra hours of that improved state. What's not to love about that?

I hope the shortening of daylight is bringing all of you migraineurs out there some relief as well.