Migraine, Meet the Beach

I used to think the beach and migraine were natural enemies — too much glare, too much heat, too much everything a sensitive nervous system dreads. Then one ordinary Tuesday, sitting under an umbrella with my toes in cool sand, I realized the beach wasn’t the enemy. My unprepared, uncushioned version of visiting it was.

This little book is my love letter to the shoreline, rewritten for a body that needs a bit more care than it used to. We’ll cover the practical stuff — shade, hydration, timing — and we’ll also sit down together, right there on the sand, for a few short gratitude meditations that turn a good beach day into a genuinely healing one. Glare, heat, and dehydration are real migraine triggers, and the beach has all three in generous supply if you show up unprepared.

But none of that is the beach’s fault, any more than a beautiful song is to blame for a broken speaker. The shoreline can be one of the gentlest places on earth for a tired nervous system, with the right setup around it. The sound of waves is one of the most naturally calming rhythms there is — slow, steady, endlessly repeating.

Your nervous system recognizes that rhythm as safety, the same way it recognizes a steady heartbeat. We just have to give it a chance to actually hear it, instead of drowning it out with heat exhaustion and squinting. A great beach day for a migraine-prone body is mostly won or lost before you even lay your towel down.

□ A real umbrella or shade tent, not just a hat and hope. sunglasses, on before the glare starts, not after. □ A full water bottle, refilled before it’s empty, plus electrolytes if it’s a hot day. hat and light, breathable clothing that covers the back of the neck.

□ A cool cloth or small towel, dampened, for a neck compress if the heat starts climbing. The old approach was avoiding the beach altogether. The better approach is choosing your window: early morning or the last couple of hours before sunset, when the light is softer, the heat is gentler, and the whole shoreline feels like it’s glowing rather than glaring.

You’re not avoiding the beach anymore. You’re just meeting it at its kindest hour. This is the heart of the book, and my favorite five minutes of any beach day. Find a shaded spot where you can still see the water, and let’s sit with it together. Sit or lie back in the shade.

Let your eyes rest on the horizon where water meets sky. Breathe in slowly: ‘Thank you for this body, tired as it sometimes gets.’ Breathe out slowly: ‘Thank you for this water, this sky, this moment I get to have.’ Let each wave that rolls in mark one breath. Ten waves, ten breaths, nothing else required of you.

Close with a quiet word of thanks to whatever higher power you hold — for the ordinary miracle of a body that carried you here today. One thing about my body I can genuinely thank it for today, even on a hard week… The beach moment I want to remember from this trip…

There’s a simple, almost silly-sounding practice called earthing or grounding — walking barefoot on natural surfaces like sand or grass. Whatever you believe about the science of it, the experience itself is undeniably calming: cool sand, the texture underfoot, the small task of walking slowly enough to actually feel it. Give yourself five unhurried minutes of simply walking along the waterline, barefoot, paying attention to nothing but your feet and the water.

It is astonishingly hard to feel anxious while doing this correctly. Here’s my whole philosophy in one sentence: prepare seriously, so you can take the day lightly. All that shade and water and timing isn’t fear — it’s the scaffolding that lets you actually relax once you’re there, instead of white-knuckling your way through a day you were too scared to properly enjoy.

Prepare like it matters. Then enjoy it like it doesn’t. That’s the whole trick. The beach was never your enemy. With a little shade, a little water, and a little gratitude, it can be one of the most healing places you visit all year — sun on your skin, waves in your ears, and a body you’re learning to thank instead of fight.

Go find your shoreline, however far or near it is. Bring the umbrella. Bring the gratitude. Leave the fear in the car. Next in the series: Traveling Light — a healing approach to planes, cars, and hotel rooms, wherever your travels take you. homework. After years of treating his own migraine like a war to win, he found something gentler worked better: gratitude, salt air, slow walks, and a quiet, steady faith in something bigger holding it all together.

He didn’t beat migraine into submission. He made peace with it on a beach towel, and the peace turned out to be the stronger medicine. He writes short, refreshing guides meant to be read with your toes in the sand or your feet up after a long day — meditations, gratitude practices, and gentle nudges to take your condition as lightly as it will let you.

He is not a doctor, a guru, or a guarantee. He’s just someone who found the beach helps, and wanted you to have a map to find your own version of it. Want the whole journey? Times — the full story, with every practice, every episode, and every lesson in one place.

The Identity Series — on reclaiming yourself from the condition: Person on the Horizon Movement & Parenting — by Sarah J.S.: Hormones & Migraine — also by Sarah J.S.: Caregiving & the Sandwich Generation — by Steven Albert K.S.: Your Aging Parent About Their Migraine Healing & Lightness — by Jake R.