- Headaches, we all get them.
Some worse than others.
But did you know there are 10 things
that you encounter in your everyday life
that could be causing your headaches.
I'm talking about that today.
Let's give a huge thank you to Omaze
for sponsoring this video.
You can visit home.omaze.com/doctormike
where you can enter for your chance
to win $1 million or a brand new dream home.
Let's get started.
Your cellphone.
We spend a tremendous amount of time
looking at YouTube videos, TikToks, meme reviews.
But the reality is
when we constantly straining our eyes
for long periods of time,
it can actually lead to a headache developing.
Now, I like to follow the 20-20-20 rule
where you pick a point 20 feet away every 20 minutes,
and you stare at that point for 20 seconds.
it allows your eyes a moment
to reset, to recalibrate,
and decrease the strain that's being put on them.
Therefore, reducing the likelihood
that you'll develop a headache.
Something I'm also seeing is that
folks tend to keep their cellphones
way too close to their eyes.
In fact, there was some research done on this
by the SUNY College of Optometry
where they looked at the distance
people looked at printed materials versus cellphones.
Printed materials, 16 inches away from the face.
Pretty good distance.
cellphones, 12 to 14 inches.
Sometimes up to seven inches
only away from the face.
What happens?
That puts a tremendous strain on the eye,
forces it to accommodate.
And, as a result, that can lead to headaches.
Folks, keep the cellphone a little further away
and watch that screen time.
Caffeine, specifically the lack of caffeine.
I'm talking about caffeine withdrawal.
It's likely that if you've been taking caffeine
consistently for a long period of time
and abruptly discontinue it,
you can develop withdrawal
leading to headaches, fogginess, irritability,
and other symptoms.
Now, my recommendation to my patients
who want to stop cold turkey
is that they should be prepared
to experience symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.
And if they don't want to,
they can slowly taper themselves off.
Either decreasing the amounts they drink each day
or perhaps mixing their cup of Joe
with a cup of decaf.
The reason these headaches even happen
is because when you ingest caffeine,
it actually narrows your blood vessels
within your brain.
And without the caffeine,
these blood vessels widen,
leading to these headaches and withdrawal symptoms.
Pillows, specifically the wrong pillows.
Look, the average human spends
one third of their lifetime asleep.
According to my recent YouTube poll
that you guys answered,
you're not even doing that.
Which, by the way, is a big problem.
Anyway, the comfort of your sleep
is intimately tied to how you feel
the next morning when it comes
to neck pain and headaches.
Now, when I talk about pillows,
I'm specifically talking about
supportive pillows based on
the type of sleeper that you are.
For example, if you sleep on your back,
you don't need a very supportive pillow
because you want your spine
to be in a neutral position.
But if you're a side sleeper,
you need that extra layer of support
to help lift up your head
and keep your spine in the neutral position,
decreasing the likelihood that you would get
neck pain or tension headaches.
This also holds true for mattresses.
Pick a mattress too soft,
you'll sink in and lose that spinal alignment.
Pick a mattress to firm,
you'll wake up with shoulder pain and neck pains.
Make sure you test drive the mattress
you're gonna be spending a third of your life in.
Cheese.
Cheese, cheese.
Not this cheese, this cheese and wine.
Two foods that are actually
consumed commonly together,
but can be triggering
for migraine susceptible individuals.
Why does this happen?
Because there's a substance known as tyramine
that's found in aged foods.
Blue cheese, Parmesan, Swiss cheese,
wine, aged meats, etc.
That can actually cause a preliminary vasoconstriction
in the blood vessels in the brain,
meaning they shrink,
which wouldn't cause a headache.
But then immediately after
cause a rebound vasodilation
where the same blood vessels
starts swelling in the brain.
As a result, you trigger a migraine.
Ways to prevent this,
avoid tyramine containing products
or at least plan ahead.
I love cheese.
Can't stop cheese, though.
Cheese.
We'll be back to headaches in just a second,
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Remember, doctor is spelled out.
Let's get back to some medical facts.
Teeth, I'm talking specifically about teeth grinding.
That's right, bruxism is a legitimate medical condition
where you clench and grind your teeth.
If you do this at night,
it could be a sleep movement disorder
leading to problems with the TMJ area.
The TMJ is a hinge joint
that actually moves forward and backward,
but also side to side.
It allows you to laugh, speak, chew.
But if there's a problem there,
it can be quite painful known
as a temporomandibular disorder.
And if you have pain there,
it can radiate to the head
or even feel like a headache on its own.
Now, if you have mild bruxism,
that may not be a problem.
But the idea is to get ahead of it
before it becomes a problem.
So see your dentist,
discuss whether or not
you're clenching your teeth at night,
and perhaps get yourself a protective tray
in order to decrease the damage to the TMJ area.
Painkillers.
That's right, the medications
that are actually supposed
to be taken to get rid of a headache
can actually cause a headache.
When does this happen?
When you overuse the medication.
These medications are actually indicated
to be taken sporadically,
every now and then, for a headache.
So if you're taking them every single day of the week,
first of all, that's a problem,
you should go see your doctor,
it can lead to a condition
known as rebound headaches
or medication overuse headaches.
These are legit medical diagnoses
with the treatment being stopping the painkiller.
How ironic is that?
Stopping the painkiller can actually stop the pain.
It's almost kind of backwards.
The biggest culprits here,
acetaminophen, commonly known as Tylenol,
or some of the prescription medications like opiates.
So you gotta be really careful
when you're using these
and talk to your doctor
if the headaches aren't stopping.
Weather, it's truly a big trigger for migraine suffers.
And we're talking about
drops in barometric pressures,
high temperatures, low temperatures,
high humidity, dryness.
All of these things
could mean something for different people
and trigger headaches.
Now, an interesting theory that exists
that actually gets me excited
is that perhaps individuals
who've inherited the sensitivity to weather,
that they get a headache before a storm perhaps,
can actually have inherited it for a very good reason.
Our ancestors, the ones who didn't
hide before the storm
because they had a headache,
perhaps didn't survive.
And maybe you're here right now
because your ancestors actually got a headache
and hid from the storm.
Kind of cool to think about if true.
Headbands, caps, hats, headphones, goggles, ponytails.
I'm talking about compression,
specifically compression headaches.
That's right, if you wear something
extremely tight across your forehead,
across your scalp,
you're actually putting pressure
on the nerves underneath the skin,
irritating those nerves.
And they actually receive signals from the brain
going to the face,
leading to a potential headache
if they are irritated.
The most common culprits here
are the trigeminal and occipital nerves
that actually feed innervation, meaning sensation,
to your face and back of your head.
So go ahead, take off that hat.
Take off those headphones, goggles,
and let that hair down.
Prescription glasses.
Now these could be the wrong prescription
or it could simply be your eyes
adjusting to the new prescription.
If you wear bifocals or trifocals,
you actually have to look at
a specific angle of the lens
in order for your eye to get comfortable.
And there's an adjustment period there,
during which time you can get a headache.
If you're getting the wrong prescription completely,
that's gonna cause a strain on your eye muscles,
which there are six of.
If those hurt, your head can hurt.
You could also have an issue
with the frames of the glasses
where they put too much pressure on your nose,
the backs of your ears
or even on your temples,
leading to other headaches as well.
Perfumes.
Well, I'm kind of being unfair to perfumes here
'cause it's really all extreme scents,
powerful scents if you will.
They can be a known trigger for migraines.
In fact, a 2011 survey found
that perfumes and strong scents
where the top of the list for migraine triggers.
We don't even have a clear reason
as to why this happens,
but it looks like individuals
who smell a strong scent
have a dilation of the arteries
inside their brain
where they actually swell
and trigger the nervous system
to experience that level of pain.
It's the chemical composition of the scent
that leads the body to react this way.
How do you know if you're one of these individuals
triggering your migraines by scent?
Keep a migraine journal.
Every time you have a migraine,
see what's going on in your life
and see if you can find a connection.
Click here for a video
on everything you need to know about green tea.
Its health benefits,
how to make it.
It's all right here.
And again, huge thank you to Omaze
for sponsoring this video.
Don't forget to visit the link
home.omaze.com/doctormike.
As always, stay happy and healthy.