Episode 2: Brain

Darcey Steinke’s engrossing new book explores the subject of pain – what science tells us and what artists and thinkers have made of it. For Steinke, it all started when she damaged her back. As the process of healing began, she began to look outwards, to explore what it is like for others to live with chronic pain. With a new understanding, she reflects on the lives of writers and artists who have found meaning in the experience of pain.

In this second episode, she investigates the pain of migraine. One in ten people suffer from migraines - they may be more common now because of the pressures of modern life, but they are in no way a new ailment. Steinke explores remedies from the ancient Egyptians onwards, some of them bizarre and hilarious, and reflects on the experience of the philosopher Nietzsche, who was plagued by migraines all his life.

‘Nietzsche believed that in facing pain directly we find meaning, even transformation. He wrote, “I love those who do not know how to live except by going under; for they are those who cross over.”’

The reader is award-winning actor Elizabeth McGovern, who played the Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey

Adapted and produced by Elizabeth Burke
Executive producer: Sara Davies
Sound design: Jon Calver
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4