Migraine Remedies with Dr. Meg Mill

Introduction and podcast welcome 0:00

So foods are complicated. So when we're talking about headaches, there's two different buckets that we're looking at when it comes to food. So one are the common foods that we know can trigger headaches. And then we also look at food sensitivities. So I don't do food sensitivity testing on Everett with everyone I work with. But I have just over working with hundreds of people with headaches and migraines. I will do that often with people with headaches and migraines, because there are some very unique food sensitivities that people come up with.

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This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Well, welcome to Vitality Made Simple. This is the podcast that equips you to feel better, look better, and to enjoy better relationships. And boy have I enjoyed getting to know Doctor Meg Mitchell. Welcome, doctor Meg. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. Oh, it's a joy to have you folks. You are in for a treat. How many people do you know have headaches? And here we are on Vitality Made Simple. We've talked about, you know, about 200 topics and we've never talked about headaches, but we have Doctor Mitchell.

She is a she's a doctor, has a doctorate in pharmacy. And but she was trained on the conventional side and then she became certified in functional medicine. And I think her world just got turned upside down. So it's wonderful, Doctor Mill, that you are an expert in the pharmacy side because that's big for headaches. But now you're seeing it from a different standpoint. How did all that happen? Yes. Well, I think that, you know, when we're talking about headaches specifically, this is a really important distinction, because when we are looking at it from more of a conventional side, we're really most of the treatments for headaches are really about treating the symptoms.

So we're looking at treating pain. And so my personal journey actually in my own health situation where I was going to different doctors, I knew the protocols of why

Functional medicine approach to headaches 2:45

things were being prescribed. Like we're you know, we're working. I'm even working in hospitals on patients with these protocols. And we're just saying, okay, we're banned dating things where we're putting medications on, but we're not really getting to what is happening. Why this is happening. And so it was really, you know, my own health journey that that made me make this change. And so now I really want to get into the way I work with people is really looking at the root cause and what are all the things that are going on within a unique person that's causing you to have these symptoms.

And so, like I was said, when we're talking about headaches and migraines, we're saying, okay, here is the conventional treatment. You're told one, which is, you know, awful. I don't I hate when people are told this that, you know, this is just something you have to live with. You know, you can think, okay, I have a headache, Gene. That will that doesn't really exist. There are certain genes, snips, that make you maybe more likely to have headaches, but we can work around them. And then we're given things that are going to treat the pain.

So when we're looking at this from a functional perspective, we're saying, okay, let's flip that script and look at it from you are a whole person. And the pain that's coming from your headache is happening because there's imbalances going on in your body. And so what do we actually need to do in your body to bring it back into balance, to look at all the things that are connected so that the pain actually goes down. So we start to see this decrease in in pain level and then like the severity of the headache and then the incidence.

And you know it happens over and over. I've worked with people who have like chronic migraines every day to being headache free. It's really a huge transformation. You really do change their relationships in that case, because so many people, their headaches, you know, takes them out of commission, takes them out of the game in terms of even getting to be around their friends or family. I want to go back to what you said about the headache, Jane. I think that is so key. People just ignore the potential of getting better. So.

So when somebody comes into you, Doctor Meg, and they say, you know, I've got headaches, but I, you know, they maybe think you're going to give them painkillers and, and you say, I can really help you, you know, where do you where do you start that unravel. Yeah. So it's it really depends on the person. So, you know, what we do is I have a virtual functional medicine practice. And I see people all over the world and and before they even come, I have them fill out detailed health history questionnaires, lifestyle questionnaires, symptom questionnaires.

And I review that before we even get started. And then we really deep dive, we do a 90 minute appointment that dives into who is this person and what are all the unique connections for this individual person that we need to bring back into balance, that are going to help the headaches get better and really it can be different, you know? And sometimes it's really interesting. One day, you know, I wrote down every there's like about 50 different things that can cause headaches and migraines. But there's usually a different combination for everyone.

And some can be really simple. You know, sometimes you can come to me and we can find the thing. Maybe there's just one thing or three things for you, and we can find those fast and you can say like, okay, life changing within a month and other people, it just takes a longer time to put these pieces together. Actually, years ago, I share this story because years ago I had two sisters that came to me at the same time. So they actually started to get, you know, I think they they saw my information out there.

They're like, okay, we need to do this. And they started coming at the same time. And they both had their mom had had, like you mentioned, with the headache between their mom and had headaches. They both had headaches and one sister within the like a month or so, her headaches were just gone. She was like, I can't even believe this. This is magic. Like, what did you know? What did we do? This is just life changing. And the other sisters weren't. So here it's like, okay, they both start with me and it's like this huge change and then hers are not better.

And I like, you know, she didn't say it to me, but I acknowledge her.

Detox, constipation, and elimination pathways 7:00

And I said, you know, I can see how that has to feel to you. Like, you know, why have I not changed? And everyone's just has a different combination of things. The reasons and we still have to work on what are the all the reasons that you're getting the headaches and the migraines. And, you know, within about four months, hers were then also gone too. But it's it's one of those things like I just am highlighting that everyone has a little bit of a different journey. So it's really about being, you know, we become health detectives and we start to say, okay, what are all the things for you that we need to put into place to get your symptoms to go away?

Yes. That has to be pretty shocking because I think a lot of people to think, oh, I just need to detox. I've heard you speak to this. Give us your wisdom on detox. Yeah, that's funny that. Yes, I think people do need to detox, but not first. And that's the problem. I think a lot of people are out there talking about detox. Detox. You've got detox protocols and you're like, okay, I need to detox. But if you're not detoxing from a place of strength, you could be definitely making things worse. And I have had way too many people come to me after doing different detoxes that they said, you know, they're with.

Maybe you're seeing a person that's running a detox program online and then you're going to join it and everybody does the same thing. And that's not the right thing for you, because if you don't have all your drainage pathways open, if your your body's not coming from a place of strength, the detox can actually make it worse. So so what do you see people doing that's the most dangerous in that area? Well, so in order to, you know, when we're detoxing it's kind of a push catch. So we're pushing the toxins out.

We have to catch them and eliminate them. If you don't have open elimination pathways. So if you're not going to the bathroom every day, if you're not sweating, if you're not, if you don't get enough hydration, if you don't have certain things happening in your body and, you know, maybe you have high levels of beta glucan, a DS in your in your GI system, there's certain things that if you're not eliminating the toxins, if you're pushing them out of the cell, if you're saying, okay, you know, move toxins, you're coming out of the cell, but they're not actually leaving the body, you're actually going to get more toxic burden on your body.

And so sometimes people can become more sensitive, have more reactions because they're not detoxing appropriately. So you touched on constipation. I mean, doctor MCG, I am shocked at all the people constipated as a dentist, probably 20 years ago, I started asking people, tell me about your bowel habits and so many people would say, well, they're nonexistent, you know, and you'd find out they only have a bowel movement every 3 or 4 days. So, so as you're saying, they're they're not eliminating. So these things are recirculating.

And then I think that's so key. So how would you if somebody is constipated and they're having headaches, what first steps would they have. Well we do need to get them to have a regular bowel movement. So we need to be able to, you know, make sure that they're moving their bowels. And that's going to be different. Again for everybody. Why if you people normalize that they're like you're saying okay. They just think, oh, I only have about movement every three days. And that's just normal for me. Well, that doesn't mean that it's actually normal.

Just because that's your norm isn't what it necessarily should be. So we need to make sure that are you having a bowel movement? Are you moving your bowels at least once a day? But then, you know, deeper than that, if you're not, why aren't you? So what what's actually going on that is keeping you constipated. And so that's why we're looking at layer. So I always say like, okay, we're peeling the onion back. So we're now I'm looking at all of these layers that are talking. Our bodies are talking like it's crosstalk between your hormones and your gut and your your head and your nervous system and your immune system.

Our our medical system is bucketed into specialties. And you can see why. Because if you're getting heart surgery, you want that heart surgeon to be focused on the heart and know everything about the heart. And you want you know, that's important. But the problem is our body. If we're one body and everything's talking to everything else. So when we're looking at it in this separate way, like in neurology, in gastroenterology, in gynecology, and, you know, immunology and all of these different departments, and they're not speaking to each other, then we're not really seeing that full body connection because all of these things are connected to each other.

Yeah. I think we so often forget the connection. You know, it's so relevant in my area with the oral microbiome and how that impacts the gut microbiome, as well as the blood brain barrier. And so it is so key, speak to environmental toxins. I think, Doctor Meg, that people forget about things like heavy perfumes, you know, personal care products. I've heard you speak on this and I really love your perspective. Yes. So what is you know, when we're talking about environmental toxins, we're looking.

Yeah. I've heard the word use exposed. So like, what are you exposed to versus the fact that you can actually digest like metabolize and detox. So we need to be able to look at your own. Everyone is going to have an individual ability to detox based on our genetic makeup. So based on your own and genetic makeup, how well do you naturally detoxify and what is your exposure level of things you're bringing in. And we need to keep that in balance. So if you're having a lot of exposure and you're not detoxifying, well, you're going to have this high toxic burden that we're talking about.

So we need to do things that can clean up your environment. So what are things you can do to every day. You know, you can put an air purifier in your bedroom.

Environmental toxins and hydration 13:00

You can say, okay, do I need to clean the air that I'm breathing? I say bedrooms because they're, you know, it's expensive to put them all of your house. So you spend half the time in your bedroom and you're sleeping and your body's rejuvenating. So that's a place you can start. How is the water? Do you drink? Are you drinking clean water? You can go to court and actually test. They have on their website now. Like looking at the toxins that are in your water like contaminants. So you know that's a neat thing to look at or do you have a reverse osmosis water system? Like what kind of water do you drink?

Are you like you mentioned, the BPA, the plastics, do you eat out of plastics? I had one time I had someone who, you know, it's just so surprising that some of these like organic Whole Foods companies that are like prepping meals. So they prep your meals, you're spending all this money on these, like special meals, and then they give them to you in plastic containers and tell you to microwave them to eat them up. Right. So that's backward or styrofoam. Yeah. That's backwards. So okay. You're going to let's say how should we be putting like packaging our food.

We're going to put it in glass. When you heat plastic it's going to melt into the food. And so know we're not thinking about things like that. So you have to just put to start to take all of these things into consideration, because they can be part of this whole dynamic. Yes. And I think it's so many things we don't think about. I had a patient in who was was having severe headaches. She was constipated and she just radiated with a really strong perfume. And so, you know, it's a touchy thing to say.

Well, a starting point, maybe put your perfume away and but she, you know, she was just so ready, I mean, and and she did and she's like, in three days I felt better. I mean, something that can just be so normal, common in the environment might be a trigger as you say, for that specific person. And maybe putting a toxic load on that over fills their bucket. Yeah absolutely. And most of my like people I work with are very sensitive. You know we say and you start to like yeah you the smells there's chemicals like natural natural flavors.

Natural smells like that means like a lot of times chemicals that. So what can you do to bring down that load. And that's a good point because we're you're thinking okay, that's just something I've always done. That's my habit. But can we change some of those habits just to bring down the load. And that can make a big difference in the way you answer. Like some of these things are, you know, some of these things we're looking at mitochondrial function, which you know, is is complicated and cellular health and the gut microbiome and all of these things.

But then some things are very simple, like the, you know, taking away your perfume or even hydrating. So an independent risk factor for headaches is dehydration. Do you hydrate? Do you put electrolytes in your water like do you sip? You need to hydrate at a cellular level in order to really benefit from the headache perspective of hydration. So are you gulping your water down all at one sitting, or are you sipping water through the day and maybe adding electrolytes? When we're talking about headaches, though, you have to be really careful with electrolytes because a lot of electrolytes have citric acid in them, which bothers a lot of people that have headaches.

Wow, that is good to know. I did not know that. So you have to really be on the lookout for what ingredients are in your electrolyte too. Okay, so folks, if you're suffering from headaches, read your labels and look for citric acid. Great point, Doctor Meg. Yeah, most of them have it. You have to kind of look through and find unflavored ones often will be good. And but we want to make sure that just, you know, look at that citric acid in the label. Oh boy. That's a pearl. Well tell us about exercise.

When it comes to headaches, many people feel better exercising. But as I've learned from you, that may not be the whole picture. Yes. Well, and that's, you know, there's going to be a lot of factors when we're thinking about that. So I would say, you know, movement is good. So you want to you do want to move your body, but you also want to be careful when you're exercising and like evaluate your cortisol levels. So if you're over if you have low cortisol and you're over exercising, you're pushing your body into that adrenaline is you're pushing your body into like that fight or flight.

And we often see, okay, the fight or flight response. Sometimes I call it the chain of pain, you know, so pain. So let like we'll take a step back. So stress on the body pushing you into fight or flight can be like psychosocial where we're saying okay it can be from your thoughts. It can be like you know the to do list all of that. But it can also be physiological. So it can be biological. So if you're having stressors on your body you can be in fight or flight from those stressors which increase your pain sensitivity, which then push you, you know, so then the pain can actually put you in fight or flight.

So it's kind of like this chain that people get into, like where they're in pain, pain, putting them into the stress response. The stress response is creating more pain, which puts them into the stress response. So we start to see get the celiac cortisol dysregulation. And so then we need you know when we're looking at exercise what is where are you within what your body's telling you. So it's not as much like don't move but move in a way that's serving your body. Don't push yourself when you're you're not feeling well when you don't like are you empty?

You know, do you feel like, okay, I'm empty and I'm pushing myself or does it feel feel good to you? And what are some maybe some more gentle movements that you can do, you know, again and then we have to look at structurally too. So like if you're pushing your, with your neck and your alignment and things like that too, that can affect headaches. Now it's it's great information because I think we too often get into the one size fits all mode and oh, I should be doing, you know, hit exercises, I should be doing CrossFit, I should be and and that, you know, as you teach, just may not be at all

Exercise, stress response, and nervous system regulation 19:30

the best thing. For your, for your own physiology. So, so doctor MCG, for the listener who's suffering from headaches and who has thought oh my goodness I think I have the headache Jane. But wait now there's hope. What what foods would you tell us are potential triggers common triggers. So foods are complicated. So when we're talking about headaches there's two different buckets that we're looking at when it comes to food. So one are the common foods that we know can trigger headaches. And then we also look at food sensitivities.

So I don't do food sensitivity testing on every with everyone I work with. But I have just over working with hundreds of people with headaches and migraines. I will do that often with people with headaches and migraines, because there are some very unique food sensitivities that people come up with. So, for example, I used to run a program called headstrong, and that was a group of we would work with women over time with, with headaches and migraines. And one of the people years ago in that group, I just point her out because it was, you know, a big discussion within that group was she was drinking protein shakes with whey, went out with pea protein because the dairy is a common food sensitivity.

Everybody, you know, people will just if they're just blanket statement a lot of people, they'll say, okay, give up gluten, give up dairy, you know, without really individualizing. So she was told, okay, give up dairy. So she went to pea. And then we did the food sensitivity test. Peas were her highest food sensitivity. So just making that switch from the pea protein shake back to the whey protein shake really had an effect on her headaches. And so it could be these, like, healthy foods that you think like, oh, I'm doing this for a reason or I'm trying, you know, I've seen cinnamon or like, tumeric come up high where people were, you know, eating the ginger, like things that are you're doing to be healthy.

And those are what your body's responding to and reacting to. Right now. So that's that's one those are called IgG food sensitivities. That's different than a food allergy. Those are IGI food reactions. But we're looking at food sensitivities. They can cause headaches. Then we have another bucket where we're looking at common things that cause food that cause headache. So those are things with like histamine containing foods. A lot of people that have headaches and migraines have issues with histamine.

So we'll often have tried, you know, exploring low histamine and Thai remain to containing foods. So that's like age cheese and meats. We have nitrates which would be like hot dogs and things like that. MSG is in a lot of prepared products. We we see issues with Salicylates. So that's another one that can be in citrus. So that's something that you might not be thinking like, okay, lemons could make you have headaches that you're not necessarily thinking that way. We also see caffeine can have that can actually help you feel better, but too much caffeine can be an issue.

And then we also see like aspartame and things in like diet soda. So there's these groups of food. Now it's all about the load. So that's what also gets you know it's like okay, here's all these foods I have foods. And so I have histamines I'm tired. So you know you start to feel like, okay, what can I actually eat. And it's really more about exploring your limits, your reactions because it's very it's individualized. It doesn't mean like you're going to react to every single thing, but it's like what is your overall load?

And and it can be different depending on different things. So for example estrogen actually has receptors on mast cells. And mast cells release histamine. So in times of ambulation or right before your cycle especially like if you're perimenopausal and maybe have some lower progesterone than estrogen, if you're estrogen dominant, you could be more likely to have a headache from a histamine containing food. Then you could at your follicular phase, like right at, you know, right after your period.

So it's and that's why people say, okay, well, let's let's just use wine. Like I had a glass as a huge headache trigger, but you could say I had a glass of wine at, you know, like this time. And I had a tear, a migraine. But then I had a glass of wine another day and I was fine. So it's not the wine, but it could be the wine. It could be the wine at the time of month when you're estrogens at a higher level. So there's a lot of different factors. There's a lot of different like, okay, did you eat this food in this food, in this food together.

What is your overall load. And and people really it's been amazing to watch people really get in touch with those kind of variance and their own personal overall load to see. Once you understand it, you can navigate it. Remind our listeners what exactly histamine containing foods are. So many are on the healthy list. Yes. Yeah. So we have that is that's a good point. And so you know, and that's another thing where it comes into a lot of things where we do gut healing, like the traditional gut healing protocols have a lot of histamine containing foods.

So you might even be being told by a practitioner to take some of the eat some of these foods for gut healing. But we have to do gut healing a little bit differently when we're looking at that. So things that are fermented are so like fermented foods. Bone broth is another one. Again, a gut healing food. Bone broths, histamine avocados are something that we have things like strawberries, tomatoes or another one. So there's a there's a long list. I can actually give you. I have an essential guide to histamine intolerance.

It's a free guide that lists. It's a really detailed list of all these foods. So we have a guide specifically on headaches. But I can also give you the histamine guide too. And then that way people can download because it's a pretty long list. Certain, you know, they can say, okay, what foods are in here. So they have a better idea of what to avoid and what to actually add. That would be great. We could put that in the show notes for our listeners to connect them back to you. And your website is just a wealth of information.

I so appreciate that you give people hope in the in the area of headaches. I've just known too many people who wake up and wonder if today is going to be a day. They have a headache. Yeah. That was actually one of the, one of the people I work with years ago said I thought it was like a great quote that she gave me. She's like I just love like not feeling like today is going to be another headache. Like is today going to be a headache day. And you just like, yeah it is. It's like you don't know.

It's so hard to plan things because, okay, I plan my daughter's birthday party, but I have a migraine and I'm out or we're on vacation. And sometimes, like, that's even another thing we look at when we're looking at environment, like when you're on vacation, do you feel are you more likely to get a headache,

Food triggers and histamine intolerance 26:30

or are you less likely to get a headache because you're in a different environment? So it's it's really piecing so many different things together. So is how does mold figure in. Yeah this equation. So yes there you know that is a factor. So that's one of the factors that we would look at. Now again you know when we're going through the layers like it depends on the unique person where that looks like it fits in in that layer. But if you have my go talks, if you have my go toxins, if you have mold exposure, then your immune system is constantly activated because it's fighting the mold all the time.

So it's like you might not even know you have mold and your immune system's like, hey there, we have to work because we have mold and we have mycotoxins in our system, which puts you on high alert. And, you know, actually signals your mast cells to release more histamine. We've already talked about histamine can be a headache trigger. So there's a lot of different factors that go in there. And another thing that's like tricky about mold is that again we're going back to the your ability to detox.

So five people can live in the same house. And right four of them could feel totally fine. And one of them could have an issue with the mold. And that's where it's really confusing because you're like, I don't have mold in my house. No one else has an issue. You know, it's not an issue in my house. No one else has an issue. But everyone has different genetics to. Right. And again, it's the whole layer, that whole all the very layers. Which one of those layers is perceived stress, you know. So speak on, you know, real stressors and perceive stress and how you help your clients deal with that perceived stress.

Yes. That we have to do a lot of thought, reframing, you know, and that's the thing a lot of people say to me, but I have so much stress in my life and I we're always going to have stress in our life. We can't control the outside. So there's going to be things that come up that change, that we're going to have these stressors. But how can you regulate your own body to deal with the stress? So like, how can you be in a parasympathetic nervous system no matter what is going on around you? And that's all we really need to work on.

So we do a lot of different, you know, there I look, I do I work on it in three different ways. So we do like the breathwork. We'll actually kind of for that. Like so we'll do the breath work really using your breath to bring your body back in the parasympathetic. We do a lot of somatic work, somatic exercises. We work on vagal tone and then we do a lot of limbic system work to work on building that neuroplasticity. And changing the thought patterns because like you're saying, perceived stress. Okay.

Well, it's perceived like if you can change that thought pattern, we can actually make your body have a different physiological response, which is really, you know, amazing. But so we have but we have to work on that because a lot of these thought patterns are so sticky. You're going to do the work and then you're going to come back to that thought. And then we're going to say, okay, wait, we're going to go back in and do it. Do it again. I love that area. Doctor Meg. I went through the Mayo Clinic wellness coaching program years ago, and we talked about, you know, neurons that fired together wire together.

So that's also known as the Hebbian law. And that is tough to redo because people, you know, get in traffic, in traffic, light traffic, you know, and then they're just they automatically go to to that person to perceive stress. It's not a real tiger, but their body is reacting. And I can see that being such a big piece of what you have to work with for people, that's that's often just sort of socially acceptable, you know what I'm saying to be to be stressed or to be busy. We wear it as a badge sometimes, like I leave so much going on and we have to just stop and say, okay, how can we calm our bodies down?

How can I bring our body back into that parasympathetic and really start to have more control over what nervous system you're hanging out in? Yeah. Give us a little more detail on breathing, I think what what kind of listener what kind of listener do right now, what simple exercise to help get out of the stress mode into the parasympathetic rest and digest mode? Yeah, there's a lot of different breathing exercises, but a simple, very like thing you can do right now is put one hand on your belly, one hand on your chest, just breathe in through your belly.

So breathe. And then pull the breath up through your chest. Pause and then exhale and breathe that out of your mouth. And like so envision it coming up. And then when you blow out, slowly envision it coming back down into your belly. So just like inhale inhale exhale. And just sit there for like two minutes and do that breath. You know, just kind of think of it like a circle coming up through the belly there, chest up and then out slowly. And you actually when you get good at it, you can start to feel your body actually relaxing.

It is, you know, and that's why I said we need to build that muscle memory where your body knows. Oh okay, I relax now. Oh I relax now and then. You always have that tool because you help you breathe. So you have the tool available to you at any moment to just calm your body back down with your breath. That's just wonderful. In fact, that just needs to be taught in kindergarten for you now. Really it should. It really should. And even with my clients with digestive problems, I pretty much start with helping them get into restoration digest before meal time.

I mean, with, you know, just simple, simple. That's a wonderful exercise. You taught us simple breathing exercises as well as sit down and put your fork down after every bite. Chew to, you know, liquefaction. And, and it's amazing how something that simple can really start taking the, the problems away of, of just digestion, bloating, you know, burping, I mean, simple things. Yes, I agree, I know I used to before, you know, a long time ago I would stand at my kitchen island and eat really fast and there, you know, serve my kids, eat the leftovers.

And then we'd, like, be running out to practices and, and I feel like so like my stomach hurts. I might say like, okay, well, you're eating exactly the opposite of the way that you should be eating. You know, as before, I learned all of this, some wonderful information. But yeah, those simple habits can make a big difference. Yeah. And I think that's what's so great about your website. There's a whole lot on Doctor Ming's website that you all can glean. She you she has a help for headaches.com. You right.

And it's an eight step guide that can really help where you are. And I think I mean Doctor Meg works with people for headache resolution. But to start with the simple things that really would be a great jumpstart before people call you correct? Yes. Yeah. Put these practices in action, say, okay, what are like simple things like we talked about hydration. Are you staying hydrated? Are you staying hydrated a cellular level, are you sleeping. You know sleep is another independent risk factor for a headache and a migraine.

Like those are basic things that like, okay, can we, you know, can we sleep? Are we priority to sleep? Those kind of simple things, you know what start to become. And there's there's a list that you can go through in that guide. But it gives you things that you can start to do that are free, that are simple, that you can just say, okay, I'll put these things in my life. And each piece of that puzzle is one more piece towards a headache free life. Really? Yeah, a headache free life. It's possible. So.

So since you've learned these things and obviously you've been a busy mom, you've been a achiever academically. So. So now what is your sleep plan that you've you know, you've learned so much from your clients. What what what is Doctor Mill do on it every evening. Yeah. So or ideally what do you do. Ideally. Yeah. No. My family tease me because when we travel I go around and like, I like, cover all the lights in the hotel where I'm like, mom is out here.

Mold, perceived stress, and breathing exercises 35:00

And I'm like, because the light. Because, yeah, like, makes a big difference to me, you know? So I make sure that my room is cool, dark and quiet, you know, so we aren't I don't keep my phone in my bedroom. So I actually leave the phone downstairs because it's too hard to not look at it. So, I mean, I feel like if it's there, sometimes they're just like grabbing it. So I actually keep it out of the the bedroom. I do like, you know, do some calm. I do calm myself down. Maybe I'll read a little bit before bed, but I just do some, you know, wind down time.

So, you know, if you feel like, okay, I want to be sleep by 10 or 1030, you know, walking into your bedroom at that time isn't like going to get you to sleep at that time. So, like, if you're trying to get a certain amount of sleep, like what time? How much do you need to, like, wind down to actually get there? Yeah. And then just, you know, just keeping it like an optimal environment to, yeah, touch on social media and headaches. What are you seeing. You know, as this escalates, what are you seeing in your client base like as far as what people are saying out.

Well or social media like what are you like the more social media people are on maybe and letting that impact. Oh yeah, blue light dress well, blue light as well. Doctor mag as even like the stress levels of social media. I mean, so many, so many people. I mean, I'm a couple of generations older than you, but in my world and someone in their late 60s, like, if I can just tell them, stop watching the news, stop. So you know what I'm saying? They're going to feel so much better metabolically. Yeah, I know where it is. I'm fortunate.

And, you know, look at our young generation. It's just hard. They're attached to their phones and it's like, I can't be anywhere without my phone. I, you know, I'm on my phone all the time and it just getting more and more. So I mean I get like also evaluating how does how does it feel like when you're on not those one. You know we can think of it from the blue light the EMF perspective like your mind's like getting the EMF. A lot of people with headaches have issues with blue light. So you know, your eyes giving your eyes a break, all of that too.

But then, yeah, it does it. What, you know, do you feel do you have an attachment? Do you have an addiction? Do you have to feel like you need that dopamine hit, you know, in your phone. So neurotransmitters are another thing that actually affect headache. So what's your, you know, hygiene I guess you would say when it comes to using technology. Yes. And that sort of segways with nature because I've found that people who are, you know, here on their phone, staring at their phone, maybe are less out, you know, looking at the birds and, you know, feet in the grass and that whole area of of healing.

Yeah. That's essential. What what has been your experience there. Yeah. I mean I think connecting to like again what I think everybody's a little bit different. And what resonates with you as far as bringing your own self into the parasympathetic nervous system. So I mean, I think like grounding widely in nature. Do you want to know? I went for a barefoot hike one time. It was such a different experience. Like, you know, I heard like I would try that and I was like, oh, well, it changes the whole thing, you know, what can you do to connect with nature?

But but think about like also just in general, what resonates with you. So you know, some some people like love nature. And I think that that's a wonderful thing. Some people love to dance, some people love to sing, some people love to journal some things. So it's really finding like, what are the things that connect to you? What are the things that are calming, that are nourished like nourishing, that feel good to you and, you know, really try to do sometimes have to tell people like, do at least one thing for yourself every day.

So like, what's one thing you can do for you every day? And if you're busy, you're running around, you're doing everything for everyone else. But like, take a little bit of time and get some of the nervous system work in and do something that that fills your cup. That I think is fantastic advice because that's where people can start right now. You know, like if you like to laugh, find some some humor. If you like to move, get out and, you know, shoot some baskets or do a hula hoop or, or whatever.

That's such a key to, to health that we forget. I mean, that's that's what's so great about your podcast. So, so to to my dear listeners, Doctor Meg has a podcast called A Little Bit Healthier. And I think that is just the best name because that's all. That's where we all want to be, wherever we are on the spectrum of vitality, we want to be a little bit healthier. So, you know, how did you get that name? That's fantastic. Yeah. So with, you know, I have a, like I said, a virtual functional medicine practice.

And I see people all over the world and, you know, a lot of people we're doing big health lifts sometimes, like we're saying these transformations. But I have this message of like, yeah, I think people can feel there's some people that can feel really overwhelmed, like we're saying, because it's like, okay, do can I make all these changes? And I everyone can be a little bit healthier. There's things you can do every day in your life. It's it doesn't have to feel like this giant lift. There's things like we're saying, you know, one little small habit, change at a time can really make big differences, especially when we add them up.

So the point of the podcast is there's different things you can do every day to be a little bit healthier. And we talk about practical tips of things that you can get in your life in order to do that. So, you know, really it is about taking your power back. I think we're in a world where we've given a lot of our health power over, like, okay, to your provider and you actually have so much more power than you realize to make changes. So what can you do every day to be a little bit healthier? Well, and there's no comparison there.

It's just all grace and all freedom because you get to do what you want to do. Yes. You don't have you don't have. You're not, you know, racing against somebody else. It's just fantastic. Well, you are just a breath of fresh air and and if you're watching this on YouTube, you all can see that doctor McNeil is gorgeous. And she she lives. What she practices, what she preaches. So tell us about how people can connect with you, what they can glean from you. As I said earlier, lots of people are suffering from headaches.

Share this with your friends that just, you know, oh, I've got a headache. And then they think there's nothing they can do about it. But that is incorrect. That is a false belief that Doctor Meg has dispelled today. So tell us all about what you offer. Yes. Yeah. So you can come over, you know, like we said, a little bit healthier. Join me over at the podcast. I love that the community here on podcasts and all the listeners. So love to have you. And then I my website is Meg NHL.com. Like you mentioned, there's a help, my help, my headaches.com, which we have a free guide over there.

And I do have a program called headstrong. We also have a community called the Women's Wellness Collective.

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So we're working together like I you know, with community with what's like different things. Again, we're taking kind of that little bit healthier. What are things that we can work on. We have like monthly topics. You meet with me like there's a lot going on over there. So that just Meg Melksham forward Slash collective. And I'm also over on Instagram at Doctor Mag, Melissa's Dr. Meg Mills in my hell yes, yes yes. Join her folks. It's just it's just wonderful. I appreciate the hope you give people in in bite sized steps.

It's your program is not overwhelming. Thank you so much for being with us today. And and thank you, listeners, for being part of Vitality Made Simple. I think we're now 236 countries and maybe 50, 50, 500 cities. We passed 100,000 downloads. So that's pretty exciting. And that's all because of you all. You know, I've I've been pretty slow to the social media, but now I'm on Instagram, so don't join me there or join me on of course on YouTube. So thank you again Doctor Meg, I really appreciate it.

We put all this information in the show notes, and it's just been a joy to get to know you. New to thank you so much for having me. Yeah. And to my listeners, blessings. Until next time. So that'll be a great podcast. I think that'll get a lot of people over to your channel. And could you hear my daughter is home sick, of course, of all days. And it was like quiet all day. And then she must be watching a movie that, like, was going loud and soft. And I was like, oh my gosh, I think I could hear it. Oh, good.

I was like stressing me out. I'm like, I was like, I don't want to stop because then you have to like, edit. But I was hoping you couldn't hear the back. Yeah, not at all. And I had excellent hearing. I mean, I really I really do have excellent hearing. So no not a bit. Yeah. I'm like oh my goodness. Because it's like of course like all day silent. And then it's like I'm like, oh, you put a movie on that now. Yeah, yeah. Background. Yeah yeah yeah. No. Thank you so much for having me and I will.

I actually like ironically just had interviewed a dentist like about oral health just in January. But but I would think it would be a great. You like to talk about the oral microbiome the the blood brain barrier. But so I'll reach out and you know, within the next few months. And we would you like to come on as a guest? Yeah, I'd love to. And my message is a, you know, a little different because I, I talk about how the oral microbiome impacts the gut microbiome, some specific bacteria that food that food will boost.

And then the, the, the blood brain barrier. So it's not that. Yeah. Because not as teeth much. Yeah. That it's not as teeth at all. No. Yeah. Not that it matters but it just like because I yeah I was like oh I just had that. Well I Roth and that but that was a little bit more about like fluoride and how you know like kind of more a little bit more. Yeah. Yeah. My message is very different. Okay. Did did you have who is the fluoride lady that I had on. Boy it was awesome Barbara I'll think of it, but I had I was having so many ideas Meg, through your interview about you need to talk to this person.

You need you need to have this person. Yeah. Do you have. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I mean, I have, I, I've had have you ever, have you had Doctor Carolyn Dean on. I have not she, she would be really good for your audience. She, she wrote the magnesium miracle. Oh and she email me and I'll send you a contact information for her contact link. She, she wrote the magnesium miracle. She's a M.D., Indy naturopathic doctor, and she's probably in her 70s. She's really sweet. I've had her on 2 or 3 times. We talked a lot about, you know, magnesium minerals and it would go great with headaches. Yeah.

She's very willing to be on. Also, you could get a an affiliate link to her product. She's got a really good pico nano magnesium and and you were talking about you know, I don't know if it's got citric acid in it though. I'm going to say I don't know, I don't know, but I was thinking about her. There were several I was thinking about. So if you need ideas, just email me. Yeah, because I'm good to share. Yeah yeah yeah. No. And I'm fearless about calling people and I'm a book aholic. So I have just all these people.

Do you pitch yourself on other people's podcasts too? Are you, when you're reaching out? Are you. No, I'm not doing I'm really not doing that enough. Like, I'd love to be on your podcast. Yeah. In all, I'll talk about the mother in law bacteria. You know, there's a there's an oral bacteria that travel to the gut, and it's actually so disruptive for the gut. And I can specifically talk about headaches. All of my patients I don't know if you got my email, but I have a Ted talk and all of my patients are physician referrals for chronic inflammatory illnesses.

So I don't do regular dentistry at all. At all. Yeah, I do DNA testing and I do GI maps on people. So I, you know, tell you what, volunteer with better on it. And all that. So we can talk about how that goes with headaches. And then there are some things people can do at home that are pretty simple that, oh, I like a person I saw last week. She's already better with her headaches, just based on me teaching her some things for her oral microbiome. Oh that's people. Yeah. It's crazy. Meg, people are using a lot of harsh mouthwashes killing their nitric oxide.

You know, is that onion you talk about I love I love your analogies because did you talk at a forum. No. Okay. Yeah. There was, there was a, there what I listened to there was, it was such an overwhelming like weekend to remember who gave. But I listen to oral microbiome. Like I sat in at one of those talks and I was like, oh, that that might be that was. Yeah. Was that in December or was that were you there in December? I was in there too. I was in there too. It was somebody from I remember who it was.

It was from bio side and it was somebody from my side. I did keynote the bio side and summit this. Yeah, yeah. And so I talk about it from a real different angle in. So anyway when you're ready. Yeah. Let me know. Yeah, yeah yeah I'll send you the link to schedule and we'll get you on. Yeah that'd be great. Right. Well thank you. Thank you for your time. Yeah. It was great to connect with you. Yeah. And to send me any of these links you want. Yeah, I'll send them in the show notes. Your is your collective like a membership.

It is a membership. Yeah. That's fantastic. That is great. No, send me information. I'll put that in there. Perfect. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Bye bye. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website w ww dot doctor Talksport.com. Stay connected, stay healthy and join us next time on Doctor Talks.

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