When you suffer from migraines, making your home a sanctuary which you can retreat to is even more vital than normal. This means creating a home environment in which you can relax and which doesn’t trigger your migraines. With this in mind, here are some of the things to consider when decorating your home.
Paint colours
As nice as clean white walls may look in interior design magazines, they’re not the best decoration choice for migraine sufferers. White walls will reflect more light and, in strong sunlight, can cause quite a glare. Not great for most migraine sufferers. When choosing paint colours, avoid painting walls which receive a lot of light in white. Darker shades are your friend. As is matt-effect paint.
Carpets
Carpets will trap dust (not ideal for those who find that allergens such as dust trigger their migraines), and will need to be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner (painfully noisy even at the best of times). The other consideration is that new carpets tend to have a strong new-carpet smell. Opting for reclaimed wood floors or stone slab floors will cut out the need for a vacuum cleaner, and should reduce the dust and smell issues. Alternatively, try vintage rugs which will have a shorter pile and no new-carpet smell.
Ventilation
If you can build lots of ventilation into your home that will help to keep the build-ups of scents at bay, and keep a steady supply of fresh air coming in. Make sure that you have space for air-purifiers in your rooms and that you can open your windows and lock them in an ajar position.
Light and shade
Try putting both horizontal blinds and curtains up at your windows – giving you the most control over how much light you let in and what angle it comes in at. Having both curtains and blinds also means that, when a migraine attack hits, there will be the best degree of black-out possible.
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