How to Work with Headaches - Reflexology Protocols

hello and welcome adam thomas from balancing touch reflexology so good to see you and thanks for joining me today today we're going to deal with reflexes that help with headaches [Music] there are so many different causes and reasons that you know headaches happen so of course if you have headaches and you know they're they're constant they don't go away obviously you know please go seek medical help because it's you know could be a serious issue but you know from day to day kind of stress headaches and you know tension kind of headaches you know eye strain that causes headaches those kind of things um yeah we can definitely work with that with um certain reflexes it's so broad right of the reasons and causes of headaches but a lot of them are you know kind of you know catch phrase stress related um but some of them we might even know what they're from you know sitting at your desk all day and um being under stress from the stuff that you need to get done not breathing properly um so in this i want to share with you um [Music] some reflexes that are really beneficial to help with headaches so this is basically like a protocol that of the reflexes that i would use to help somebody who's dealing with headaches okay so step one we're going to work on the head reflexes okay so we work on the pad of the toe here to work the entire head reflex i like to go up one side and then come across the other okay and then i move that over a little bit and then move the top line down a little bit okay and i just keep walking my thumbs back and forth until i have covered that whole pad and then i would do it a bunch of times okay so probably three times is good to get it all working really good um you can use a tool like this i recommend using your finger like that holding it like that right and then doing a little bit of a rolling technique so it becomes part of your finger okay and then you can do the same thing roll across roll this way but basically just cover the whole pad of the big toe okay so that's the reflex general reflex to the entire head right um then we can do side of the head so coming up the side here so this would be right down the middle of the head half the head right so you're working the nose reflex there and all the way down there and then you can work the side of the head here you can use your fingers to walk down as well [Music] whatever one seems to work best for you personally i think i like my finger right now i can get a little bit more accurate deeper feeling but you can use the stick and roll down as well okay and then we can do top of the head so rolling across the top make sure that you don't push on the actual nail bed that's going to hurt so roll this side right this side of the nail so just be careful there because you don't want to cut yourself when you're doing this um so i go each one make sure that i'm holding it nice and then i just do a nice little rolling action here down each of the toes okay and again do this a bunch of times okay and as you can see i changed my technique a little bit where i'm just rolling across this way you can just use your finger as well nice and solid there and you can just roll like that as well so again i think i prefer my finger maybe because i'm just so used to using my fingers for reflexology but having a tool like this is really useful okay so we did head um side of the head here also this side and then we did top of the toes right so those are just some reflexes to the head um next one we're going to work on a good one for the headache is the pituitary gland so if you look you can see that little sticky outy part right there right if you can't see a little sticky-outy part you can check where the um basically the toe print comes to a point okay and you'll feel that and if you feel very lightly it actually feels like it it sticks out but it feels like it actually goes inside okay so i'm gonna put my finger or my tool exactly right there i'm gonna push straight in and then i'm going to turn and push out a slight bit towards the medial side so towards the big toe more right so as you can see i'm sort of pushing into my hand so i'm pushing in and then i'm pushing up a little bit okay and um the way that i do this with my thumb is i get the hooking part of my thumb right in that little cave even though it sticks out you'll notice it feels like a cave so you're gonna go in and then you're gonna hook medially right out that way so same idea push in and then up a little bit and then you can get some nice deep pressure there and see if it's a little bit sensitive but yeah there's a there's an actual good little good kind of feeling ouchy that you should feel right so that is the pituitary gland and then um the last one that i like to do for kind of step one is to work all the way around the neck okay and that is all the way around the stem of the big toe so um i'll show you first with my thumbs i like to go across this way and i like to go back this way so i don't miss any points then i'm going to take my finger and go walk around the back side here and through into the toe and then i'm going to come around with my other index finger all the way and wrap around that way okay so that way i'm doing two complete circles right so thumb thumb finger okay um using the tool you can kind of just really take little tiny steps or points rather all the way around the stem of the big toe okay and you're gonna find some nice ouchy parts as you go along okay and i adjust how i'm using that um this tool right so as you can see i'm kind of holding it like that so this is my supporting and then i'm actually just bringing my thumb right but bringing my hand towards my thumb as i work around that way so that's another little technique that you can use you can roll all the way around right whatever feels good this one feels really good where you pull in here i'll make it really obvious for you um so see how i have this tool right through and then i'm actually gonna plant my thumbs on top and then i'm gonna actually rock up and down and move the tool like that and i can really feel um some tenderness all the way around there so i can do the same sort of technique like that on there and i can also rock it on the back here okay i think on the front here it feels better to actually push straight in but on the sides this one actually works really well and so be careful because you can really go deep um quite easily okay so there we go we have the head the entire head we did um side of the head top of the head and we did the pituitary gland and then we did the neck so that's what i would do for step one okay so step two we're gonna move down into the sinuses and shoulders okay so sinuses are excluding the big toe because we already worked that really well are the pads of the remaining toes okay so you can again work that with the tool right you can do something like this um there's also a nice little point that you can kind of push straight in the middle of the pad that feels really nice and sensitive as well okay or you can use your thumbs to walk down right just work the whole pad of each of the toes really well [Music] okay so that's working the sinuses and it's really good to just if you do feel some tenderness or anything like that just move your thumb or whatever you're working the tool all around the pad so just make sure that none of the um pad gets left out okay and also i sort of work a little bit on the sides as well of the toes just not the front part because you are dealing with a three-dimensional object right so just make sure that you get all the way around again just being mindful of not digging in and pushing into your nail but if you're going to be doing this on yourself it's easy for you to feel what you're doing so chances of you actually hurting yourself are pretty low [Music] good so that's the sinuses uh then we're gonna do the shoulders okay so shoulders there's kind of two reflexes that i think of the shoulders one's all the way across the top here okay and then the next one is actually like the shoulder joint right that we call the shoulder um i like to push all the way along this line here and pressure tends to be um a little bit like towards the back of the foot okay so straight through and then you just work a line all the way across the top where the stems of the toes meet the the foot right the ball of the foot here okay top of the ball of the foot and work it all the way across like this there we go and with the tool you can kind of push straight in [Music] okay and then it's just really good to think about your non-working hand as good support okay always [Music] then we can come right over to this nice little shoulder joint area and see how i'm instinctively just kind of rolling it and hearing little crunchies i don't know if you can hear it on there but there's little crunchies happening okay um i also really like to um because i'm so used to using my thumb i'm gonna do this kind of a technique almost pulling my pinky around my thumb right and don't forget to work the back side as well okay of this shoulder joint and just to be clear it's above there's a little bone that comes down to here so you're working this whole area right in here front and back right over here good um i like to a lot of uh headaches can come from eye strain or um you know shoulder tension that's why we work the shoulders so working the eyes and ears is really important now the eyes and ears are found these are more eyes and these are more ears okay i like to do a little technique kind of like unscrewing a light bulb okay so i go all the way around like this okay and so what i'm doing is essentially turning the flush right so if i show you on my finger here turning the flash all around and then and then i move up a little bit so the pressure is kind of like you're pulling out okay not really but you are but what you're doing is really stimulating all sides of the toes at one time okay so that's that uh next one is uh you can kind of go in with this stick and push directly towards your heel okay if you can see that there you go push directly towards your heel okay but again be really careful here um depending on your condition between your toes right um i like to also use my pinky finger to get in there and you can push down as well okay so that's working right into the webbing between the toes but if you have you know really dry skin or it's cracked or things like that you can totally skip this one it's not that important but it is a very feels really great to actually work right in the webbing there next one is similar to the shoulder line except we're going to be pushing towards the heel okay so pressure is going to be going down this time same line just down okay and if you want to use this you can push straight down that way i actually prefer to use it this way but my pressure is pushing down towards my heel here so i'm kind of pulling pulling down and that is eyes and ears [Music] i'm going to flip onto the other side now because a lot of tension headaches and stuff come sometimes from clenching your jaw right so teeth and jaw is um a good one to work and that is found on the back of the toes here from the nail bed so all the toes from the nail bed down over top of each knuckle right the second knuckle down okay so you can work it like this so walking down the back of the toes here [Music] okay so each toe walking down walking down and walking down each toe okay sometimes you can roll it it's a little bit difficult to get but i find it easy to use your fingers here index and just clamp clamp clamp clamp walking down that way okay so that just helps with any type of tension in your teeth and jaw area right so this would be along this line here is the bottom jaw along this tie line here is the upper jaw right on one side of the head okay next one we're gonna do is the thyroid okay thyroid is found right in here across from where the bunion would be you can just work that really well okay so with this one i'm going to use a stick so you i can show you but again it's sort of in pushing straight directly into my foot and then i'm going to turn and then it's going to be out towards like towards where the bunion bump would be or towards the other you know towards the middle of the foot here okay so let's straight in and then out okay so that's how i get to the thyroid okay and you'll feel it so you might be a little bit high or low but just move around right across from you know the why it should be the widest part of the foot or where this um bone comes out across on the inside of the bone right so over here so again with my thumb i'm actually pushing in and then out this way there you go oh this one tends to be sore okay so that is step two right and so step two would be the um sinuses the shoulder you did the shoulder joint um eyes and ears and then we did teeth and jaw on the back of the foot so eyes and ears was this right teeth and jaw and then we ended with the thyroid gland good so step three diaphragm and the um reflexologists call it the solar plexus i tend to like the kidney one point because technically speaking if you put the map of the body on the solar plexus would be over here right because that's where it is but um if you look at many maps and books and stuff they're going to say that the refl uh the reflex the solar plexus is right here it doesn't matter what it's called um it really is one of the most powerful points in reflexology so it's good to work it um but for me in my mind uh the kidney one point uh works for me so this is really good to just push in and hold for a little bit this point um is really really great for any type of stress relief right because a lot of us that feel stressed throughout the day if we check in when we're in a stressful moment we're gonna find that we don't breathe right we're sort of holding in our stomach area you know in our diaphragm we're not breathing properly so when we hold this point there's so many nerves that come together here that this is quite a powerful grounding relaxing point right so i like to hold this for about 30 seconds okay and i'm using you know fairly good pressure here i found when i was pushing with two thumbs it wasn't quite hitting the spot that i wanted so i switched and i'm gonna do thumb over thumb to hold a little bit firmer okay again if you wanted to you could use this to kind of get a bit more ease in there a bit more stretch for your arm um if you can't quite get your foot up like this you know this these tools give you a little bit more reach right so you can be a little bit more comfortable when you're doing this so yeah hold it for a good 30 seconds then what we're going to do is work the diaphragm okay so the diaphragm line is found all around here so you can loosen it up by doing little circles like this right um just make sure that you work all the way across the diaphragm it's a big muscle that does a lot of work for us without us even knowing so it's really great to [Music] keep this reflex to the diaphragm nice and open nice and loose right so if i wasn't using this i could be using my thumbs and doing kind of a dot-to-dot type of motion here which is really great there we go so yeah just work this whole area really really well um because it's just related to stress and um a lot of headaches can be attributed to stress and kind of holding holding our body and not breathing properly so this really helps open up the breathing right helping us relax so that's what i would do for step three step four i want to work the liver which is on the other foot so i'll show you so if i come up here so liver is felt found all in this area here okay so i'm gonna work it really well work it across this way [Music] if you use a stick here so it's found below the diaphragm line which we just worked and then above the waistline here so there's a bone that sticks out so anywhere all the way along there right you can just work it as best as you can right it's a big area and it's a tough part of the foot to work so i prefer using a tool okay and then all the other lobe of the liver works all the way over here right so we're basically working in that whole area there right so there you go so you can work the whole liver on that so that is found on the right side okay um and it's going to flip over to the left foot now and we're going to work the pancreas so over here we have the stomach and then in between is the pancreas okay so we're going to work that and it's just a little line that works across this way okay so the pancreas sort of sits in behind the and in the middle behind the stomach in the body [Music] okay so it's found right about there all the way in this area so you can work that [Music] to help with any type of headache issues sweetness of life those kind of things good then we're going to do the large intestine okay so i'm going to flip back over to the right foot here and i'm going to start down here above at the hip line here i'm going to walk up to the waistline i'm going to turn and walk straight across the foot okay so up here waistline come straight across the foot okay so you can work all the way along there this is good too because it gets your left hand working if you're not left-handed right you can work along there come up here so large intestine right and we continue the other side over here so we come across this way to the waistline and then we come down to the top of the hip line here come to the center of the heel here come up to there and then we just work up along the foot a little bit okay so this is the finish of the transverse colon right and then we have the descending colon here and then we have the sigmoid colon come around here right and then work up a little bit so you don't have to do these in one or together like i'm doing i'm just showing it this way so that it's easier to understand but you can work your entire uh you know for example right foot and then you can work your entire left foot right but for this to make make it so the video is not insanely long um i just wanted to show you most of it on my left foot and then where the reflexes need to change for the liver which is on the right foot and also the large intestine where it jumps from one to the other i need to show it to you um that way but you can do for example the whole left foot and then the whole right foot just so you know so a large intestine so that has a lot to do with um you know headache issues as well then we come to step five which is we're gonna work the entire spine okay so the spine how we're how we're um standing and things like that have a lot to do with um potential headache causes okay so the spine is found on this little bony thing here sticky-outy part on your big toe which is known as the nose okay and then you're gonna come straight down the foot all the way to if there was a corner of your heel okay so the best thing to do is if you don't know exactly where it is you can kind of feel the arch of the foot but you can work this way on the arch of the foot so all the way down to you know that plane and just work all the way up into where you can feel bone right all the way around the ankle here so you can work this whole area um as best as you can so you can use you know kind of thumb techniques where you can do kind of dot to dot all the way down to the heel and work up a little bit this way right you just work and find any type of tender points along the way like you might find some right about there and so this is related to kind of your getting into the lumbar section of your spine right so you can kind of figure out where in your back and shoulders and things like that and your body that you feel the pain and it most likely will correlate to um the reflex points that are related to the spine in your foot right so yeah this one just is really feels awesome to work okay and if you wanted to um you can use this little tool to work all the way along so see how i'm kind of i feel where my bone is and then i just roll [Music] where um i need to right just to make sure that i get the whole spine right you can just kind of feel along so what i do is i start from the bone and then i roll and also too you could actually add a little bit of cream or oil and you can actually kind of rake up and down this way but i wouldn't recommend doing that when you don't have some kind of oil or cream right because it kind of irritates the skin a little bit i'm just showing you right now because i'm not actually pushing too hard but if you do have a little bit of oily skin and stuff this is actually kind of nice to work okay so there you go that's what i would work for any type of headache protocol so that's what i would be working if a client came to me specifically for headache issues right but if you know directly um you know they tell you that they sit at work and their shoulders are up around their ears and you know they have so much neck tension and stuff and then they also tell you that they get lots of headaches well then yeah that maybe that's where you spend a bit more time right in general if somebody comes to me and they're feeling a little bit of a headache before a session um if i work the entire feet um at the end of the session chances are they don't have a headache anymore right so as you're going through as well you can kind of see if these areas tend to be a bit more stiff and it's also good to work a little bit extra for them right for those points because it will really help benefit any type of headache issues that they have right if there's any points that you use uh that you would add to this mix of you know headache protocols that would be awesome i'm also thinking of making a couple videos that are just um sort of protocol uh related you know if you have this issue these are the points that we would work stay tuned and if you haven't subscribed hit that little button so that um you will know when the next one comes out so yeah thanks for watching today and i will see you in the next one remember to keep those feet happy bye-bye thanks so much for watching today if you like this video give it a thumbs up and feel free to share it with anybody that you think might be interested in if you're interested in reflexology this might be a channel to subscribe to if you haven't already hit or better yet step on that bell icon and then you'll be notified when the next video is coming out if you're looking for a reflexology chart head on over to balancingtouch.ca we have created a bunch of visually exciting easy to understand reflexology charts for you and if you have some more time check out some other videos until next time this is adam thomas from balancingtouch.ca see you later