Chris Volesky LLC

04/10/2026

How Headaches/Migraines triggered by the weather are handled with CM

Weather can often trigger headaches or migraines with chronic sufferers in a number of ways:

• Barometric pressure change
• Humidity changes
• Rapid temperature fluctuations
• Wind
• Air quality changes (like allergens)
• Cold or heat exposure

So many approaches to “managing” these headaches are reactive.

This means you take something to treat the pain when it happens OR when you know there is a weather front moving in

The problem is that these approaches don’t take into account your body

Your body isn’t adapting to these changes and it results in a headache.

So instead of a proactive approach that seeks to improve the terrain (your body), many approaches use a reactive approach to “manage” the symptoms your body produces as a result of the weather change

Chinese medicine looks at this completely differently

Weather triggered headaches are an internal problem. An inability to adapt to this type of change

So rather than just suppressing symptoms when they occurs, Chinese medicine seeks to improve the way your entire system works so there is improved adaptability

One of the simplest ways to strengthen adaptation to weather change is with moderate, regular sweating.

This is best done with mild exercise. Think the sweat you get from briskly walking for 20-30 minutes

This is probably better than simply using a sauna because saunas can more easily be overdone, and exercising in this way circulates Qi and blood, which improves total system function and communication.

And please comment and follow to help me get this out to more people

And, if you need more help, reach out. This is what I help people with every day.

04/09/2026

Here’s a headache case caused by mold exposure

This patient found out they had been living in a moldy house for a number of years.

This was pretty evident when they left the home and some of the symptoms started going away.

However, they were still experiencing daily headaches and lots of sinus congestion.

Also, any time the patient was around animal dander it would trigger congestion, headaches, breathing troubles and a skin rash with lots of itching.

This is something that hadn’t been an issue before.

The first part of the treatment involved a set of herbs that helped to decongest the nose and deal with latent infection and biofilms. Herbs like Scutellaria are good here as they contain berberine which is found to help break down biofilms.

The next part of the formula was a large herbal combination which had broad spectrum anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. We call this “heat” in Chinese medicine.

Heat is often responsible for many chronic issues like lingering infections, swelling, skin rashes, and headaches. When someone is living in mold it means they are inhaling this daily and likely dealing with mold in their food and on their skin.

A broad spectrum approach like this helps not just the symptoms but for the whole body to overcome the lingering effects caused by this type of environment.

The results here were quite nice. Within the first two weeks, there was already mild improvement in symptoms. By 4 weeks, they were reporting 50-70% relief across the board.

04/08/2026

Here’s what your phone is doing —>

Your phone is doing more damage than you realize

Excessive screen time — especially at night — does three things that directly lower your migraine threshold:

1️⃣ It stimulates cortisol and adrenaline

Your nervous system can’t tell the difference between a stressful news headline and a real threat. It responds the same way. That means elevated stress hormones late into the night.

2️⃣ It disrupts melatonin production

Blue light suppresses melatonin. No melatonin signal = your body doesn’t properly shift into recovery mode. And poor recovery = lower migraine threshold the next day.

3️⃣ It keeps your muscles tense

Mental stimulation keeps your jaw, neck, and shoulders contracted.

You’re not “relaxing” while scrolling — you’re just sitting still while your nervous system stays activated.

In Chinese medicine, late-night stimulation is considered a form of excess yang ☯️ — you’re keeping your body’s active, warming energy fired up when it should be cooling, descending and transitioning to yin for rest.

That yang energy is rising into your head.

Which is exactly where you don’t want it.

The fix isn’t perfection. It’s a boundary.

Set a screen cutoff 60-90 minutes before bed.

Replace it with anything that doesn’t stimulate
— stretching, breathing, reading something calm, prayer.

🧠 Your nervous system needs a wind-down ramp.

Give it one.

04/08/2026

⁉️ How does your headache specifically feel?

So many practitioners tend to think more broadly about this. Like they’re all “just headaches”

But how they specifically present can actually tell us a lot in Chinese medicine ☯️

Better yet, it gives us a better idea how to treat headaches to get long term relief

So what are yours like:

🔥 Yang Rising:
• Throbbing, pounding (often temples); light and sound sensitivity; sensation of heat or pressure rising, worse with stress of anger

🩸 Blood Stasis:
• Fixed, stabbing or sharp pain; chronic, long-standing location; worse at night; pain on a specific spot

💨 Wind:
• Pain that moves from one place to the next; can occur suddenly with weather shifts; may come with aversion to wind or chills

🌊 Damp:
• Heavy, foggy sensation in the head; dull, persistent ache; worse with humid weather; feeling of fullness in the head; thick coating on your tongue

😫 Qi stagnation:
• Tight, pressure-like pain; fluctuates with emotions; comes and goes; band-like sensation around the head

Sometimes you can have more than one type, or a different type of headache depending on what is going on in your life (stress, weather changes, poor diet, etc.)

🤨 Is this helpful? If so, give me a hand with a comment and a follow so I can get this out to more people

👉 Comment your type and I’ll do a more detailed analysis video specifically of that type

04/01/2026

Here’s why spring colds are so common according to your Qi 🌿

In winter, Qi is stored inward, but in spring, it has to pivot outward toward the surface of the body.

This transition depends on what Chinese medicine calls the Shao Yang, the body’s “hinge” that helps us smoothly adapt between internal and external changes.

If that hinge doesn’t move freely, it can get stuck. That’s when you might notice things like:

• that “almost sick but not quite” feeling

• mild congestion or post-nasal drip

• sensitivity to temperature changes

• slight mood swings

• on-and-off digestive issues

One of the most common reasons this hinge gets sluggish? Diet.

Too much sugar, refined carbs, greasy or fried foods can create internal dampness, making it harder for the body to pivot smoothly with the season.

This is where Wind Tea comes into play 🍵

It was designed to help free up the Shao Yang hinge and address the dampness and swelling that can build from these habits—supporting a smoother seasonal transition.

Spring so much about detox, it’s about helping your body transition well.

Comment “wind” and I’ll send a link to Wind Tea

03/31/2026

03/27/2026

Here’s how —>

When you get stressed, your body releases cortisol and adrenaline

These increased your nervous system excitability, lower your pain threshold (how easily something hurts), and create chronic tension in your muscles

It also directly lowers how much it takes to cause a migraine

This means you are more susceptible to weather changes, hormonal shifts, bad nights of sleep, foods, etc.

In Chinese medicine emotional stress causes your Qi to stagnate and surge upward

This is describing what is occurring inside your body. Building internal pressure. It rises up. Ends up stuck in your head

The trick here is to build stress management techniques into your lifestyle

Breath work. Movement. Consistent rhythms with food, sleep, activity.

These are neurological interventions designed to keep your migraines from being so easily triggered.

This is the starting point.

03/24/2026

Your cellphone is toxic —>

The relationship you have with your cellphone is probably one of the most toxic relationships you have.

Imagine if you were dating someone who made you more depressed, more anxious, less able to focus, and dramatically decreased your ability to sleep and recover.

That’s what your excessive cellphone use is doing to you.

If you saw your friend or kid in a relationship with another person and it was causing this, you’d stage an intervention!

Oh, and it’s probably giving you ADHD-like symptoms too.

03/18/2026

Vestibular migraine —>

So these can still cause painful headaches, but with vestibular migraine the chief issue is dizziness, vertigo or imbalance.

There are some similarities to headaches and migraines when treating these with herbs, but the herbal formula is often more specifically tailored to the dizziness itself.

Like more traditional migraines, there is this yang energy spiking in the head. But with vestibular migraine it is causing “wind” or a feeling of instability that we would call dizziness or vertigo.

03/14/2026

Migraines and your gut —>

If you have migraines AND any combination of bloating, IBS, reflux, or irregular bowels, these are not separate problems.

They are the same problem wearing different faces.

Here’s the connection:

Your brain and your gut are in constant two-way communication via the vagus nerve.

When the gut is inflamed or the microbiome is disrupted (dysbiosis), it:

• Increases systemic inflammation, which sensitizes pain pathways

• Disrupts serotonin production (80-90% of your serotonin is made in the gut)

• Triggers immune responses that affect neurological stability

• Dysregulates mood, energy, and pain sensitivity

Serotonin is directly involved in migraine. It’s the same neurotransmitter that triptans (migraine medications) target.

So when your gut health is poor, your serotonin is unstable, and your migraine risk goes up.

In Chinese medicine, the gut is considered the center of the body. If the center is disrupted, everything else suffers.

It creates a kind of traffic jam between the upper and lower body, and the pressure ends up in the head.

What to start addressing:

• Reduce ultra-processed foods and excess sugar (highly disruptive to gut lining)

• Eat a variety of plants and fibers to support microbiome diversity

• Consider common reactive foods: gluten, dairy, alcohol, fermented foods

• Prioritize warm, cooked meals over cold raw foods (easier on digestion)

The gut-migraine connection is one of the most under explored levers. But it’s one of the most powerful.

I also made a free ebook about these migraine levers. If you’d like a copy, simply comment “ebook” and I’ll send you a link

03/13/2026

Hormonal migraines —>

This may seem tricky.

Hormonal fluctuation, especially if the body isn’t regulated, can flare up any number of issues, including headaches and migraines.

The approach here is actually intended to be good for the whole body.

Getting whole body systems regulated is the key to being able to whether normal hormonal fluctuation.

This includes features from basically every migraine “lever” I’ve talked about:

⁃ Stress
⁃ Diet and blood sugar
⁃ Sleep and circadian rhythms
⁃ Neck tension

Something I with almost every migraine sufferer already is to use a combination of herbs at some point in their treatment process, specifically to get body systems working together more smoothly.

A great feature of this is that many women report better stability through their monthly hormonal changes.

I also made a free ebook discussing strategies to help with this.

If you want it, simple comment “ebook” and I’ll send you the link.