We all know that person who keeps a couple of pain killers on them ‘just in case’.
It’s the ‘go to’ for dealing with niggling headaches so you can get on with the million tasks to do each day.
You only have to look at the “Panadol” website to see how heavily they market their product to deal with headaches.
For some,
Dealing with the pain from headaches is a constant battle…
The ache sitting behind your eyes
The band of pressure around your skull
Constantly needing to rub your neck and jaw
It’s definitely not what you want to put up with.
It’s not like you can’t put up with it, it’s just an annoying background irritation that sits there while you try to get on with your busy day..
Over the years, we’ve been able to help all types of people suffering headaches. Of all the patients, there’s one which really stands out…
Case: 32 year old business owner with headaches.
Having suffered headaches since she was 25, she’s had them for 8 years now and she’d all but given up. Everything she had tried seemed to help a little bit. But without fail it would come back. It became a priority for her because since she started her own business, her headache frequency and intensity increased and made it harder for her to get on with things.
As much as I just wanted to help her, I knew the processes to follow. Before I could provide any effective treatment…
Figure Out The Pattern
Yes, it’s important to diagnose the ‘type’ of headache and get a clear diagnosis… it really comes down to what the triggers are… Sometimes without a bit of digging and coaching can we start to eventually uncover what the triggers are - and there may be multiple.
Some say “time of the month”
Other say “It’s when I’m stressed”
Or “I just didn’t drink enough water”
Just to name a few.
Sleep, Stress, Nutrition, Movement
Essential to working out why headaches affect some of us and not others
Sleep - Without entering REM 4-6 times per night, you’re essentially starting the day before the start line. If you’re going on a 12 hour flight, would you do engine checks, refuel and maintain the plane? Yep.. Well, if you choose to not sleep for 4-6 sleep cycles (each cycle is about 90mins) you’re essentially cutting corners on your 12 hours of living. Manage your sleep.
Stress - Break this into 2 parts: Cognitive and emotional. Cognitive load refers to how much is on your mind and how much thinking you’re currently doing. Emotional load refers to how many and how strong the emotions are that you’re experiencing. Stress occurs when the cognitive or emotional load is higher than what one can tolerate. Too much going on and too many emotions or both! Manage your mind.
Nutrition - The calories and nutrients consumed. If you’re under-eating, your body will tell you. If you’re eating too many things that your gut and cells don’t agree with, you’ll have gut symptoms like bloating, irregular bowel movements and more commonly, daily lack of focus, brain fog, a general sense of unease and lethargy. Manage your food.
Movement - A history of trauma - whiplash or some other head, neck, spine or nerve injury, can sit there quietly in the background. Combine that with not enough movement, we create areas in our bodies that become sensitive simply because we aren’t moving them enough. Much less often, we see people with issues due to overmovement, but it’s more likely that the region you’ve got history with, doesn’t move as well as you need it to. Manage your movement.
So, back to the 32 year old with headaches
It turns out:
She had a car accident 10 years ago where he dealt with some whiplash and concussion
Her cognitive load has spiked because of his business
Her eating has become more like “eat what you can find while you’re driving”
Her hasn’t trained for a year because he’s so time poor.
Her goes to bed late doing business ‘stuff’ and then has to get back to work from 5:30am…
Using the buckets of sleep, stress, nutrition and movement, we can audit the lifestyle triggers. Reducing these triggers will inherently reduce how sensitive your nervous system is all the time and allow you to be more tolerant of triggers as they come up.
3 Step Process We Take To Manage Headaches
Lifestyle audit with 1 recommendation at a time
Injury history
Provide treatment and move the areas that have been neglected
If you deal with headaches on a regular basis don’t wait 10 years to get treatment. Pain killers will help with some short term relief but it doesn’t compare to finding and then treating the cause.
Book a FREE CALL with one of our practitioners to help you audit your headaches.