Hello and welcome to Chinese reflexology. For headaches and migraines. I'm Holly see the founder of Chinese foot reflexology calm. I want to thank you for joining me today because you're going to learn some really powerful points that you can press on your feet that can help clear away headache and migraine pain. Let's go over what we'll cover in the first lesson and there will actually be three lessons in total for this course. So in Lesson One, you'll learn about traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese reflexology one on one and then we'll get into the western approach to headaches versus the TCM or traditional Chinese medicine approach.

And then you will learn some very powerful acupressure points for pain relief, and I will also share with you the best Chinese reflexology point for relieving headaches and migraines. But before I begin, let me just tell you a little bit more about me. I'm the founder of Chinese foot, reflexology calm and I started my blog at my kitchen table and now I have a 30,000 visitors a month from over 200 countries around the world. And I'm a full time mom too. And this is a picture of my son from a few years back when he was about five years old. And I'm sharing this photo with you because if not for my son, I probably wouldn't have started this blog at all.

So let me tell you about the story. How it began was my son was a toddler and I had caught a terrible cold and I had to get better fast because he was just about a little over a year old then and he didn't understand why mommy was sick and lying on the couch and not speaking. So I felt so sick, I really did not have the energy to massage all of my reflexology points. So what I did instead was I chose the best points based on my knowledge of traditional Chinese medicine. I chose the best points that I thought would help for cold and I massage a handful of points. And guess what they weren't.

All of that congestion. I started noticing it clearing Almost immediately. And so I thought, well, let me keep massaging my feet and I did it a few more times that day. And by the next day, I'd say I was like 97% better when normally if I was that sick, it could take seven to 10 days to get over cold, but I was better the next day. And because I was part of a stay at home moms group, and a lot of moms were always struggling with catching colds from their kids. or looking after the family when they were sick.

And then once everyone was better, they came down with a cold. I thought that this reflexology routine was like so powerful and so helpful. I had to share it with other moms. So I started my blog to share the cold remedy routine with other moms and that's how it all got started. And since then, I want a publishing contract with Hay House, the largest publisher of self help and transformational books in the world. And my book soul guidance was published In July 2016 It's been an amazing journey.

But it wasn't always that way for decades of my life, I was totally miserable with what I was doing. In terms of career. I chose duty over happiness, I listened to my head instead of my heart. So I worked in high tech for a decade and I was so unhappy. I felt trapped. I was bored, I felt resentful.

I had all this repressed anger, and it really affected my health. It was okay when I was in my 20s but as I hit my 30s my body just couldn't handle it anymore. And I got really sick and I had what I refer to as my year of illness where all sorts of weird ailments one after another struck me and and I would go see doctors and nobody knew what was wrong with me. In fact, they told me that I was perfectly healthy according to the test, and I would go see alternative practitioners and they each had something different. To say and some thing to work on on my body, but nothing would restore my health. And I kept wondering when the other shoe would drop, when would I get another weird ailment or a sickness?

And it was like I had no resilience. And then one day, my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, he said, Why don't you go see my Chinese reflexologist? You know what my response was? It was, isn't that where they rub your feet? How is that going to help me? So yes, I used to be one of the biggest skeptics of Chinese reflexology.

But I made a deal with my husband that I would go see his Chinese reflexologist for a month, if he would go see my naturopath for a month. So we did like, you know, this kind of trade thing. And guess what happened? I went twice a week to see the reflexologist and my health began to stabilize. And so I was inspired to learn Chinese reflexology for myself. And within a year and a half of the low point in my health, I had recovered my health fully and I was training for my very first triathlon.

And it was all thanks to the Chinese reflexology it completely transformed my health and my life. And that's why I'm so passionate about sharing it with others. It's my passion to empower you so that you can heal yourself. So this course on headaches and migraines This is your first step to turning things around for your health so that you don't have to suffer with the pain anymore. There is an alternative you can be free from the pain you can change your life. So let's get started with this lesson.

But just one quick thing. Before we begin the information in this course is for educational purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for proper medical advice or treatment. Please use common sense if you or a loved one is sick or unwell please See a doctor. So let's start with some Chinese reflexology one on one. And once you understand this basic theory, you'll understand how it can help with headache and migraine pain. So reflexology is an ancient healing art that has been practiced in many cultures including the ancient Chinese culture and the early Egyptian culture.

The traditional Chinese style of reflexology is based on the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, which is a mouthful to say. So I'll just call it TCM for short. And this is an ancient healing system that encompasses acupuncture, energy healing Chinese herbs and massage. Now one of the core principles of TCM is ci, which can be described as your life force or your vital energy. Now, similar to how we have a circulatory system for blood. Our bodies have energy meridians or pathways for the flow of G. So this lifeforce energy flows through these meridians.

And when she is flowing smoothly, then our bodies are in harmony and we experience wellness. However, when the flow of ci is disrupted, this can result in disease within the body. You see, ci helps keep everything flowing in the body. It's like that energy that drives the flow of blood, the flow of limp fluid, even the flow of food through your digestive system. So if she is flowing the right way, then everything else is flowing to think of it like a river. So when a river is flowing smoothly, then the ecosystem is in balance.

If a twig lands in the river, then the water can easily clear it away. However, if the river is constantly bombarded with debris and pollution, The water starts to get murky and the river becomes less efficient at clearing things away. Eventually the river gets plugged up. And this can lead to problems where the water is overflowing on one side of the obstruction, and then not enough water is getting through on the other side of the obstruction. Your body's energy meridians work in the same way, when she is flowing as it should your body as well. And when it is not in balance, and when you start to accumulate this, quote unquote debris in your body, that's when you start to have problems its first starts with the energy level.

And then if it's not treated at the energy level, it can then manifest at the physical level. So how does this relate to Chinese reflexology? How does Chinese reflexology work? Well, your energy meridians they run throughout your body and they also run through your feet. In Chinese reflexology, your feet contain them master control points for harmonizing. The energy in your body.

Now each reflexology point on your foot corresponds to a different area of your body. And if a point feels sensitive or hard to the touch, this is an indication of an energy imbalance and it may or may not yet have manifested in the physical body. But even if it's at the energy level, if you let it continue, it will eventually show up in the physical body. So in order to restore balance in your body at the energy level, you massage the corresponding reflexology point. And when the energy isn't balanced, the physical body follows, you can get an approximate idea of where the different reflexology points are located on your foot by looking at this diagram, when you imagine a human body outline superimposed over the soles of your feet, then you get an idea of which parts of the body correspond to different areas of the feet.

Now one more thing I'd like to to share with you is the reflexology stick. This is a small wooden stick that tapers into a rounded point at the end you can see one in this diagram here. And the stick is really at the heart of this style of reflexology. It allows you to press harder into point and this results in stronger and more targeted stimulation of the reflexology point. I would estimate that using a reflexology stick is about 10 times more powerful at shifting ci than just massaging with your fingers. And because of the strong stimulation, it hurts when you find a sensitive point, but it really helps it really works.

For this course I'm going to teach you the gentle method. This is where you use your fingers, thumbs and Knuckles to massage as opposed to using a stick. The reason why I teach this way is because the reflexology stick moves cheese so powerfully that it's really really important that you get proper instruction on how to use one because you can actually move the CI the wrong way. And this would work against healing. Now with the gentle method, no matter how hard you press, you're never going to be able to press as hard as you can with the stick. So if you accidentally massage the wrong way, the effect is really mild and temporary.

So when you stop massaging your ci will naturally go back to flowing the way it was before. However, that said, it is still extremely beneficial to practice the gentle method of reflexology because when you're massaging the right way, you're creating this incredible momentum for restoring balance in your body over time. So it's like when you see people practicing Tai Chi in the park. Now did you know that Tai Chi is actually a deadly martial art? Most people don't know this and most people don't learn it as a martial art. So they don't even realize that when they're making that flowery gesture with your hand.

It's actually a move for gouging out in opponent's eyeballs. Now, would someone learning Tai Chi, would it be more effective if they knew the martial art application when they were practicing move? Of course it would. But even if they don't know that, it would still be very beneficial for them to practice Tai Chi. Okay, first we'll go over what causes headache and migraine pain. And we'll start with the Western medicine perspective first.

So here's the official version from the Mayo Clinic. Chemical activity in your brain. The nerves or blood vessels of your head outside your skull, or muscles of your head and neck or some combination of these factors may play a role in primary headaches. Some people may carry genes that make them more likely to develop such headaches. So this applies to primary headaches. Where the headache is the main issue and it's not a symptom or result of another condition.

That would be a secondary headache where the headache is caused by something else. So some examples listed on the Mayo Clinic website include like a blood clot, a flu, concussion, meningitis and carbon monoxide poisoning for this course will focus on the primary headaches because if you've got a secondary headache, you would treat that condition to eliminate the headache and the treatment would obviously depend on what the condition was. So the western approach for treating headaches is to control the pain with medication. And the most popular over the counter drugs are n sets and acetaminophen. So n sets these are non steroidal anti inflammatory drugs, things like ibuprofen And the common brands include Advil and Motrin, whereas Tylenol is in acetaminophen. Now there are pros and cons to both of these types of drugs.

They're very popular because they're very effective for pain relief. But they also have risks. And Said's can upset your stomach and they also increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. There are also conflicting studies on the link between n sets and Alzheimer's disease and dementia. So before it was thought that n sets lowered the risk of getting these diseases but a study came out in 2009 by the University of Washington School of Medicine, where they found that patients 65 and older who were heavy and said users were 66% more likely to develop dementia, and 57% more likely to develop Alzheimer's. The authors of that study propose that it might be that the end sets just defer the onset of dementia or Alzheimer's until later.

So then when you hear this stuff, you go, okay, maybe I won't use that I'll use acetaminophen instead. But taking too much acetaminophen can cause liver damage. So if you have a headache or migraine pain, like, what do you do, it's almost like you're caught between a rock and a hard place. If you take this increases the risk of heart attack and possibly dementia. But if you take this and might not work as well, or if you take too much, you increase the burden on your liver. And I've seen people who are juggling their medication so that they get the maximum dosage, the mass maximum strength of each.

And they have to do this because the pain is so intense and it becomes this crazy balancing act to control the pain. But what if there was another path that you could take? And what if you're on it right now because you're watching this video. This is the path of bringing your body back into balance by addressing what is causing the pain not trying to make the pain go away, but to address the root cause of what is actually making you experience the pain. There's an old Chinese saying that says, without movement, there's pain. With movement, there is no pain.

In Chinese medicine, there are different causes of headaches, and they're categorized into two main groups external versus internal. So external causes they're referred to as external pathogens. These aren't pathogens the way that we know them as a germ or bug, even though they can be they're more like things that are outside of the body. Things that we would consider triggers that cause headaches, so it could be like catching a bug such as the flu and getting a killer headache with it. But it could also include things like the weather, like the changing atmospheric pressure, or it could be something that you eat these types of headaches, they come on suddenly, and they're extremely painful. So the pain is stabbing, it's sharp, it's throbbing.

Now on the other hand, there are internal causes of headaches, and these result because of an imbalance inside the body. So remember those energy meridians I told you about earlier, while they're all interconnected and depend on each other to be in balance. So if there's something out of balance, this can lead to headaches. So this type of headache develops over time. And instead of a sharp, stabbing pain, the pain tends to be milder, and it feels more dull and achy, as opposed to sharp, stabbing and throbbing. So to treat these types of headaches, you have to actually address the underlying disharmony is in the body.

And there are so many different ways for the body to be out of balance that each person is different. So that's beyond the scope of this short course. But what we will focus on is the headaches that are a result of these external factors. Because these are the ones that cause people to want to reach for the pain medication. They're the ones where the pain is so severe, it stops you in your tracks. These are the headaches that throw a wrench in your entire day and they make you cancel your plans or they make you want to hide away in a dark room with the shade strong.

So how do we go about treating these types of headaches so that you don't have to reach for the pain medication, but instead you have a way to get relief naturally. It helps to understand that the pain is a result of stagnant ci and blood. If your ci is not flowing as it should, then the blood is not flowing as it should and things start to congest it's like that river that's got too much debris in it. And when you're exposed to one of those external triggers, it causes the chief tend to be driven upwards towards your head and it's like you've got a traffic jam going on in your head. And that's what's causing the throbbing and stabbing pain. Now remember the saying without movement, there is pain with movement, there is no pain.

So when you get the CI and blood flowing smoothly through your head, this helps clear away the congestion that is causing the pain. One more thing I want to mention about these headaches from external factors, even though it's outside triggers that caused them, there's still an internal imbalance in the body that makes one susceptible to getting a headache from these triggers. So there can be 100 people outside when the atmospheric pressure is changing. And they could all be eating ice cream, but not every single person is going to get a headache. It's going to be the person who has something going on in their body that makes them more susceptible to the trigger. So in that sense, even the external Factor headaches, there's still an underlying internal imbalance going on.

The thing about taking over the counter drugs is that they have to be filtered by your liver and your kidneys. So it's extra work for these organs. It's extra work on the energy meridians associated with these organs. And so what can happen is if you keep taking these over time, and the organs have to keep working so hard, is that it can actually cause an imbalance in the meridians over time. And then this can be one of those factors that can actually make you more susceptible to having that ci congestion in your head and then actually causing you to have more headaches and to be also irritable, which is something that's associated with this congestion of ci and blood in the head. So let's take a look at some of those natural ways to address headache and migraine pain.

We'll begin with some acupressure points that are very effective for pain relief because they help move tea and blood. The first point is known as large intestine for this point is great for moving gene blood, which makes it very effective for easing headache pain in the whole head. It's also good for treating colds too. And one more thing to mention is that point is actually used to induce labor so do not press on this point if you are pregnant. This point is located in the middle of the webbing between your thumb and index finger. So an easy way to locate this point is to press your thumb and index finger together, kind of like you're making an alligator mouth if you were doing like a shadow puppet on the wall.

So press them together. And then you'll notice a bulge formed and the highest point on the bulge is where this large intestine four point is located. So go ahead and do this now. And then when you locate this highest point on the ball, just Press and hold. And again, don't try this point if you're pregnant. So go ahead and try it on your right hand and then try it on your left hand.

The next point I'm going to show you is called liver three. This point is often used in combination with large intestine four. And this combination is known as the four gates. And they're really powerful when used together to move tea and blood and to relieve many types of pain including headache pain, knee pain, and lower back pain. This particular point liver three is also good for insomnia. And it's also another point that is not recommended for someone who's pregnant.

Liver three is located in the webbing between the big toe and second toe. So you want to take your finger and feel the webbing right The near the base of the toes and then just slide your finger along until you reach that point in the V and as you're sliding, you're going to notice like a little dip a little depression pretty close to that point but not right at that point. And then that is where liver three is located. And once you find it, just press and hold. But don't do that if you're pregnant. So go ahead and try it on your right foot and then try it on your left foot to finally the last acupressure point I'll show you is gallbladder 41.

This is also really good for moving g ants especially good for headaches on the side of the head. This point can also help with any sense of dizziness that may accompany or headache or even dizziness in general. And the point is also used to treat tinnitus which is ringing in the ear. And the reason why this point is so effective is because the gallbladder meridian actually runs on On the side of your head and in and around that temporal area, so it's like you're pressing this point and immediately connecting with that meridian to the side of your head. gallbladder 41 is located in the webbing between the fourth toe and the pinky toe. And unlike liver three, which was a little bit above that point on the V, this one is really just right next to that tip of the V formed by the bones.

So go ahead and just slide your finger along there and following along till you can feel that point where those bones meet and then you found gallbladder 41 and this one also you can press and hold and go ahead and try that on your left foot and then feel for the point and press on the right foot. So you've learned some acupressure points that are good general points for moving cheat with the reflexology points. They let you target specific areas when you combine The Chinese reflexology points with the acupressure points you really amplify the power for clearing away in pain. This is where two plus two equals five, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And you're going to learn in this course how to locate and massage Chinese reflexology points for the sides of the head, the sinus area around the eyes, base of the skull and the top of the head so that no matter where you're feeling the pain, you've got a point for it.

We'll also go over a reflexology point that can help with any nausea or dizziness that may accompany your headaches and migraines. And of course, you will learn the best point for headaches and migraines. And I did promise to tell you what that was at the beginning of this lesson. So that point is the temporal area point. But you'll have to watch lesson two to learn how to locate and massage this point. So I will see you in the next lesson.

Bye