Answer: Watch videos of passionate, inspiring people and see if you can “catch” some of their passion and impressiveness.
This strategy is called “hanging around good company” or “positive priming” and is such a pleasant way to get re-vitalized. Watching admirable and passionate human beings is so good for the soul!
Today I “discovered” and felt beautifully uplifted by Robert Fischell. What an amazing guy! He is a successful medical-device inventor. He won the TED prize for 2005. Here he is giving his acceptance talk, where he describes three of his medical inventions and presents his three wishes:
And it looks like Robert Fischell’s migraine “zapper” does work for some migraine people:
Single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation for acute treatment of migraine with aura: a randomised, double-blind, parallel-group, sham-controlled trial.
Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Preliminary work suggests that single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (sTMS) could be effective as a treatment for migraine. We aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of a new portable sTMS device for acute treatment of migraine with aura.
METHODS:
We undertook a randomised, double-blind, parallel-group, two-phase, sham-controlled study at 18 centres in the USA. 267 adults aged 18-68 years were enrolled into phase one. All individuals had to meet international criteria for migraine with aura, with visual aura preceding at least 30% of migraines followed by moderate or severe headache in more than 90% of those attacks. 66 patients dropped out during phase one. In phase two, 201 individuals were randomly allocated by computer to either sham stimulation (n=99) or sTMS (n=102). We instructed participants to treat up to three attacks over 3 months while experiencing aura. The primary outcome was pain-free response 2 h after the first attack, and co-primary outcomes were non-inferiority at 2 h for nausea, photophobia, and phonophobia. Analyses were modified intention to treat and per protocol. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00449540.
FINDINGS:
37 patients did not treat a migraine attack and were excluded from outcome analyses. 164 patients treated at least one attack with sTMS (n=82) or sham stimulation (n=82; modified intention-to-treat analysis set). Pain-free response rates after 2 h were significantly higher with sTMS (32/82 [39%]) than with sham stimulation (18/82 [22%]), for a therapeutic gain of 17% (95% CI 3-31%; p=0.0179). Sustained pain-free response rates significantly favoured sTMS at 24 h and 48 h post-treatment. Non-inferiority was shown for nausea, photophobia, and phonophobia. No device-related serious adverse events were recorded, and incidence and severity of adverse events were similar between sTMS and sham groups.
INTERPRETATION:
Early treatment of migraine with aura by sTMS resulted in increased freedom from pain at 2 h compared with sham stimulation, and absence of pain was sustained 24 h and 48 h after treatment. sTMS could be a promising acute treatment for some patients with migraine with aura.
What is TED?
TED is a wonderful source of videos of passionate, inspiring human beings. If you haven’t discovered TED already, do yourself a big favor and go check out their site:
TED. Ideas Worth Spreading. Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world
