The Top 12 Health and Dietary Habits

That Contribute to Headaches

Some of these habits may surprise you. My recommendation is that you first read through each one of these habits and then decide if each habit could be contributing to your headaches in any way. Now I understand that you won’t know for sure if each one is contributing at the time that you read it the first time, but you’ll probably have an intuitive feeling about it immediately or even an internal revelation as time goes on. If the habit could possibly be contributing to your headaches because it is your habit, circle it. One by one, work on eliminating the habits that are circled, noticing your progress. The more habits you can eliminate, the more you are moving towards a headache-free life, life as usual with no headache pain!

1 Bad sleep habits cause headaches.

Sleeping on your stomach or with your pillow bunched up is a sure way to a headache. What happens is that your neck becomes twisted for long periods of time as you sleep, putting pressure on the nerves, blood vessels and vertebrae in your cervical (upper) spine. That pressure sends messages to the brain that there’s something that needs to be addressed, and a pain signal is sent to your head. Presto! You have a headache and your neck hurts as well.

The solution is sleeping on your back with a pillow that supports your neck fully. You may also sleep on your side, but check with us at the office about the proper sleeping position that won’t create headaches. If you bring in your pillow to our office, I’ll check it to see if it’s part of the reason you have headaches. For example, a pillow that is too thin or too fluffy will contribute to headaches because it doesn’t support the cervical curve in your neck. The cervical curve is a natural S-shaped curve in your neck. If the pillow is too flat, that pillow flattens your cervical curve. If the pillow is too fluffy, it exaggerates your cervical curve.

FOR THE PERFECT ADJUSTABLE PILLOW CHECK OUT OUR CHIRO-FLOW PILLOWS AT YOUR NEXT VISIT!!

2 Too much caffeine and/or chocolate causes headaches.

Scientists don’t know exactly what it is about caffeine that can cause a headache, but they do know that there is a clear connection. The big question is what is too much coffee? If you’re drinking six cups a day, that’s too much! Four cups a day is too much! Three cups of coffee a day may be too much as well. For some people, any coffee is too much; the caffeine triggers a headache and keeps them away from a headache-free life.

If you are drinking too much coffee, it’s important that you decrease your coffee consumption slowly. DO NOT STOP COFFEE COLD TURKEY! If you stop drinking coffee cold turkey, you will get a headache and it won’t be just an ordinary headache. It will be a monstrous headache!

The best way to cut your coffee consumption is to decrease slowly by 1/2 cup a day.

The same principle can be applied to chocolate. If you eat chocolate every single day three times, decrease it one time a day. Chocolate contains caffeine and you can develop that monstrous headache from its withdrawal.

3.A diet that contains too much monosodium glutamate (MSG), Nutrasweet, Aspartame, diet sodas causes headaches.

Very clever researchers discovered that certain chemicals, especially MSG added to Chinese food is a strong headache trigger in many people.

Foods that contain MSG might not necessarily list “MSG” or “monosodium glutamate” on the label. Instead, you’ll see: hydrolyzed vegetable protein, natural flavorings, sodium caseinate, yeast extract, hydrolyzed yeast, autolyzed yeast, hydolized oat flour, calcium caseinate, hydrolyzed plant protein, hydrolyzed protein. Protein isolates of any type may contain MSG, even soy protein. If you eat processed foods, it will be rare for you to see a label without one of these! Every fast food chain uses it in their food ingredients!

You may lose to gain. What I mean by this is that you may lose your present life in the meal department to gain a headache-free life. What you gain is learning how to cook and prepare foods from scratch. You gain the freedom to do things you couldn’t do before and you can do them without restriction. You gain the affection lost by family members who didn’t understand your headaches.

In a few months, you will have adapted so much to your new diet, that your family and friends will want to come over to see what you’re cooking that tastes so good! Natural foods cooking is different than what it was like a decade ago. It’s easier to find cookbooks, share recipes, and find near ready-made alternatives at the health food stores and whole food superstores.

Nutrasweet and aspartame are unnatural sugars synthesized in the laboratory. There have been thousands of reports about headaches and even brain tumors linked to aspartame.

The “sugar-free” label really isn’t so sweet after all. Avoid anything that has a list of chemicals in it! If you’re truly serious about eliminating your headaches, try one week without any chemicals. That includes diet sodas, which are nothing more than a chemical concoction!

When you go one week without chemicals, you will be amazed at how different you feel and besides that, you will have a week free from headaches. Tell me what happens because I will want to write it down so other patients will be motivated.

4. Low blood sugar from not eating regular meals causes headaches

When you don’t eat regular meals, you get energy from stored fats and carbohydrates. This happens automatically in response to low blood sugar from not eating. Keep a journal of your diet and look for a pattern of headaches that appear when you don’t eat breakfast, skip lunch or dinner, or go to bed hungry.

The best diet you can eat is one that supplies you with three meals a day and snacks in between.

5.Low blood sugar from eating too many carbohydrate foods in a meal causes headaches.

Carbohydrate foods are foods such as breads, pasta, cakes, cookies, candy, muffins, rice, beans, whole grains, tacos and tortillas. Starchy vegetables such as peas, corn, potatoes, acorn squash, and other winter squashes also contain high levels of carbohydrates. Milk products are another good source.

It’s okay to have carbohydrate foods in your diet, but limit them to a maximum of three or four servings per meal. Some people must limit them to one or two to become headache-free. Watching your diet for the number of carbohydrates eaten in any one meal can be a big revelation into why you have headaches. Too many carbohydrates cause headaches by raising insulin levels that lower blood sugar too fast and also increase inflammation in the body.

Here’s an example of too many carbohydrates in a meal:

Oatmeal with raisins, orange juice, a muffin, and an apple.

You may think that the oatmeal meal is a healthy meal but it contains too many carbohydrates. The headache-free breakfast would be oatmeal with milk and an apple. You could even add an egg to this new meal.

Here’s another example:

Steak, big baked potato with butter, green beans, peas, corn, salad, and apple pie a la mode.

6. Low blood sugar from not enough protein in the meal or in the diet causes headaches.

Many people believe that it’s not a good idea to eat red meat, so they eliminate it from their diet. Grass-fed red meat is an excellent source of nutrients, including omega-3 fats that prevent headaches! The problem is that when many people eat less meat, they don’t substitute other protein foods for the red meat. Other protein foods include fish, chicken, turkey, wild meats, eggs, cheese and dairy products.

If you don’t have enough protein in a meal, your body cannot repair itself. Without enough protein in a meal, the composition of that meal is primarily carbohydrates and fat. And we already know what too many carbohydrates in a meal can do: cause a headache!

Make sure you eat some form of protein at every meal. Even adding one or two eggs for breakfast can change your life and your headaches! See how good your day goes when you have enough protein! Eat at least three ounces (about the size of a computer mouse) at each meal and you’ll have the minimum amount you need each day.

7.Food allergies cause headaches.

Food allergies will trigger a headache quickly. If you’re allergic to a food, whether it’s yeast, milk, peanuts, wheat, or sugar, it’s possible that you will have a headache after eating that food. In children suffering from migraines and epilepsy, eliminating offending foods will result in a reduction of seizures.

What makes food allergies more complicated is that a food essentially stays in the body for four days so you could be reacting to a food eaten four days ago!

8.Faulty elimination causes headaches.

For a minute, think back to a time when you were constipated. How did you feel? Miserable! I must tell you how important it is to have a bowel movement at least twice daily. If you don’t, you are constipated!

What happens inside the body when you are constipated is not pretty! All that waste matter sitting inside your intestines is rotting! Forgive me for being so graphic, but I want you to understand this. There is a process in the body called diffusion that happens inside the cells that works like this: wherever you have a higher concentration of something, it will flow to an area of lower concentration. When you have a high concentration of wastes in the intestines, they start “polluting” the rest of the organs in your abdomen. This is part of the reason why so many men have prostate problems!

Those wastes in your colon are in such a high concentration that they start “flowing” to other places in the body. Countless patients have told me over the years that part of the reason why they got headaches was because they were constipated.

So stop carrying around those old meals as a suitcase in your colon and start feeling better. You will clearly have fewer headaches as a result. Some simple ways to do this:

1. When you get up in the morning, drink two to three 8-oz glasses of water within five minutes. This will result in a bowel movement within about 30 minutes.
2. Obtain slippery elm bark powder from the health food store and mix 1 to 2 tablespoons in 1/3 cup applesauce. Eat once or twice daily. This works for diarrhea or constipation and is gentle enough for babies.
3. Start eating celery or carrot sticks with lunch and dinner, or add 1 cup cooked vegetables to every meal.
4. Add 3 oz. aloe vera juice to every meal.

9. Dehydration causes headaches.

Your body uses water to dissolve EVERYTHING except fats and fat-soluble vitamins. When you don’t have water, you can’t dissolve toxins and get them out of the body.

Your blood has a high percentage of water. When your water levels are only 5% lower, your efficiency suffers by 30%. Aim for 1 oz. water for every 2 pounds you weigh. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you need a minimum of 75 oz. water per day. That’s equivalent to a little over nine 8-oz glasses water. If you drink three in the morning when you wake up, you only have six more to go for the rest of the day. That’s easy!

10 Malnutrition causes headaches.

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies cause headaches. I’m not going to go through every one of the vitamins and mineral deficiencies that do this because you’ll rush out and try to buy them. The problem with that thinking is that it doesn’t work. You must have balanced nutrition, a balanced amount of vitamins and minerals to make nutrients work. A good vitamin/mineral supplement plan is important.

11 Stress causes headaches.

I understand that you may be experiencing a very difficult time in your life; during difficult times, there’s a lot of stress. For every problem, there’s a solution. Some of the top ways to beat stress are:

1. Exercise! When you exercise, you purposefully stress your body, teaching it how to overcome this stress. That’s why you feel so good after exercising!
2. Let all your frustrations be dissolved by taking a walk. Go somewhere peaceful; the energy of that place will be transferred to you.
3. Play an instrument or listen to music or sing.
4. Jump up and down on a rebounder and yell at the top of your lungs! With three or four screams, you’ll notice the stress is gone.
5. Add an extra B vitamin to your diet: pantothenic acid. This B vitamin, which is vitamin B5, helps support the adrenal glands and makes a big difference in stress levels in three days. Take 500 mg.
6. Laugh belly laughs!

12.Processed foods cause headaches.

Processed foods cause headaches by causing inflammation; the more inflammation, the more frequent you’ll have headaches. The way that processed foods cause inflammation is by the chemicals in them called advanced glycation endproducts, or AGEs. These AGEs are worse than free radicals, causing mini explosive reactions inside the body’s organs that lead to aging, heart disease, cancer, diabetes and inflammation.

Once you commit to not eating processed foods, your life actually becomes simpler and you end up saving money on the grocery bill. Your lunch and dinner meals are similar: protein food (meat), grain, vegetable, and fruit for dessert. The simpler they are, the easier they are to prepare. For example, one meal could be chicken breast, brown rice, green beans with almonds, applesauce, and beverage.

While you’re cutting out processed foods, you’ll also start to notice that you aren’t aging fast anymore. Your waistline is returning without trying. You have more energy and more concentrated brain power. And you’re headache free!

Call today to schedule your next appointment! New patients make sure you mention this blog and receive your New Patient Special discount Over a $225.00 savings!

Jake Morgan DC

Advanced Chiropractic & Spinal Rehab

4549 Catclaw Dr

Abilene, TX 79606

Stop by the office and grab your free copy of my latest book or download your free copy here!

Why Do So Many Surgeries Fail?

The…patient should be made to understand that he or she must take charge of his own life. Don’t take your body to the doctor as if he were a repair shop.

—Quentin Regestein, MD

Are You Considering Spine Surgery? Get a Second Opinion.

Do you believe that having a surgeon cut away the problem will make it go away? Is that really your best choice? This is like having a toothache and believing you automatically need to pull the tooth. Remember that 80 percent of back pain is mechanical in nature and can be managed without surgery. Surgery should be a last option. Many people do not correctly understand the anatomy of the spine or musculature. Open-back surgeries are highly invasive and often weaken the spine, create scar tissue, increase risk of infection, require time off work, and can set you up for future problems. All of the above can lead to an eventual second or third procedure. The good surgeons understand this and want you to try every form of conservative treatments before they recommend surgery.

Every year, about half a million spine surgeries are performed in the United States, about twice the rate of other countries. Some experts believe that about half of these back surgeries are unnecessary. Some people also come out of spine surgery with persistent symptoms. The spine is a very complex structure—it is not a simple as just cutting out the pain. There is occasionally a time and a place for surgery, usually most successful in acute emergencies, but research tells us that many who have lower back surgery experience only initial short-term relief. A recent study compared conservative lower back therapy (like computerized spinal decompression therapy, muscle balance therapy, electrical muscle stimulation therapy, and lifestyle modifications) with surgery. One group of patients had surgery; the other had conservative treatment. They were then followed for 10 years to determine their progress. After four years, there was no difference between the group that had surgery and the group that did not have surgery. Many studies show that with conservative care and time, disc herniations decrease along with the innate intelligence of your body to heal itself, particularly when various stressors are reduced. This is great news for the patient who suffers with a herniated disc and other ailments.

You can’t afford to not do something! In a recent study, it was projected that chiropractic patients would save more than $21,000 over a five-year period.

Before you decide to have surgery, I would love the opportunity to take a look at your problem and help you to make a more informed decision.  325-695-9355 give our office a call and ask about our new patient special.

Stop by the office at 4549 Catclaw Dr. Abilene,TX and get your copy of my latest book 21st Century Back Pain Solutions or click here download your today!

Dr. Jake Morgan

As promised in my last blog here are a few tips for you to help manage the effects of psychological and emotional pain that creates havoc on your body. If you missed the last blog click here!

Tip 1: Exercise.

When researching for the effects of exercises on mental conditions, it is clear that exercise is one of the most beneficial activities to burn off stress and give your brain an increase in feel-good hormones such as serotonin. Exercise doesn’t have to be strenuous. Walk, stretch, perform light jogging—just move, feed your brain.

Tip 2: Meditate.

Go somewhere quiet, close your eyes, be still for 10 to 20 minutes, and let your brain slow down. I have to meditate daily—I like to do it for about 10 minutes in the morning and five minutes at lunch. Purchase a book or DVD with meditation or yoga techniques.

While meditating, put slight pressure on your closed eyelids and a physiological reflex will occur that lowers blood pressure and heart rate.

Tip 3: Condition your mind with positive influences.

Read positive books, watch uplifting television, go see comedy movies. Avoid the fear, doom, and gloom that is in newspapers, film, and downtrodden conversations with people always complaining (some might be our own family members). For your own health, limit your time with people who see everything as negative—or steer the conversation away from depressing talk. Such relationships can be toxic and drain mental energy. Turn toward positivity by choosing to turn off the nightly news and instead read the cartoon section of the newspaper. Watch the movie Dumb and Dumber—dare you not to laugh! Get the old films of The Three Stooges, laugh, smile, surround yourself with positive people, positive images, or pictures of happy times. I hang in my clinic pictures of my kids laughing and playing, as well as pictures of patients who have had great success in our office and become our extended family. They evoke happy thoughts in me and block out negative influences. You must protect your mind.

Tip 4: Track your moods throughout the day.

Keep a journal to write down when your moods are at their best—notice patterns, and try to engage in more of those activities that are joyful. When you notice you’re mood is more blue, fill that time also with positive activities, a funny book, or an upbeat song—not a heartbreak country song. Surround yourself with people who are positive and encouraging. Create a space in your living environment or workplace that is comfortable and peaceful. Turn off the phone and relax, even for 10 to 20 minutes.

Tip 5: Get rid of clutter.

Environmental clutter can clutter your mind. Get rid of clutter by donating it to charity if you haven’t used it in over a year. You won’t miss it—trust me. Give it away. You will feel better.

Tip 6: Do something fun.

Go to the park, go fishing, go shopping, walk in the park, work on your hobby. Give yourself a “me” day or even am hour of fun to give yourself a mental break.

For serious emotional or physical traumas that might have happened in the past but have not been resolved, it is best to seek the assistance of a licensed therapist. Emotional traumas can linger in your mind and could very well be the source of chronic pain and continue to be chronic for years to come if not addressed.

Call and schedule your appointment today! Still not sure chiropractic care is for you? We have free consultations! Call and schedule your free consultation! If you are ready to start your journey to better health call today and mention our blog and tell the receptionist you would like to utilize our New Patient Special to receive your discount of over $200!

Dr. Morgan

4549 Catclaw Dr

Abilene,TX 79606

325-695-9355