The Headache Healer’s Handbook. Jan Mundo

a life-changing experience in a cathartic breathing workshop. During an unexpected emotional release in which I experienced a rush of memories, grief, and cognizance, my fifteen-year-long mysterious and disabling upper-back injury instantaneously began to dissipate. This was followed by months of feeling my fascia creak open like newly oiled rusty hinges. The entire experience left me with the tangible sense that our cells are holographic: they store our pain, emotions, thoughts, and memories — which are all bound together and can be released simultaneously.

      I noticed similar experiences in my clients during the first year of my massage and headache practice. As they released tightness and pain, their emotions emerged. It was increasingly clear that their bodies held stories, which were related to their headaches. I was drawn to train in somatic (or “body-as-self”) work to uncover and address the emotional roots of chronic pain and the unconscious, embodied patterns that hold it in place. Body-centered awareness helped my clients produce lasting change by connecting their headaches, habits, and underlying causes.

       The Evolution of a Program

      As a response to patients who still felt unheard or misunderstood after decades of chronic pain, stress, tension, fear, and frustration, I designed a mind-body, self-care program that addressed the limitations of conventional medical treatment. Instead of taking medications for relief and prevention, clients would practice somatic awareness, breathing, meditation, aligned posture, self-massage, and hands-on headache therapy — along with headache-healthy diet, guidelines, and a diary for tracking everything. I hired expert consultants from the UCLA Statistical Biomathematical Consulting Clinic to refine my client questionnaires, and I began collecting intake and outtake data on my program.

      I received certifications in Body-Centered and Conscious Relationship Transformation from the Hendricks Institute, Master Somatic Coaching and Bodywork from Strozzi Institute, and biofeedback training from Stens Corporation. I trained in Somatics and Trauma with Staci Haines / generationFIVE, studied developmental psychology at UC Berkeley Extension, and wove in courses in energy work, intuitive development, somatics, meditation, shamanism, writing, and expressive arts.

      I began teaching my first medical center programs at Kaiser Permanente in 1995 after moving to the Bay Area. Fortuitously, my interviewer had divulged that she had been dealing with “a two-year migraine,” so during the last five minutes of the interview, I stopped her pain. Thus, she subsequently facilitated my employment as a health educator at Kaiser Permanente, where I was also trained in course design.

      I went on to teach my headache program to groups at medical centers, universities, corporations, community programs, and conferences, including Hill Physicians Medical Group, the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, California Pacific Medical Center, the Institute for Health and Healing, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Lockheed Martin, and Hewlett Packard. I gave workshops at the U.S. Association for Body-Psychotherapy Conference, the Association for Humanistic Psychology Conference, Integrative Medicine Forums at UCSF Medical School and UC Berkeley, and the International Somatics Congress.

      Then nurse practitioner candidates at Holy Names College in Oakland, California, contacted me and asked if I had data for a research study. (Oh, did I have data! Finally, I’d get to use the client self-report information I’d been collecting!) Thus in 2000, the Mundo Program was brought to light in a retrospective pilot study that looked at seventy-eight migraine patients who had completed the program through their HMOs. The study found that the patients were able to reduce their number of migraines by 41 percent and their use of relief medications by 52 percent upon completing a four-, five-, or six-week class (depending on the institution).

      The results were remarkable, but especially because this was a brief training period — and the patients had a median of nineteen headache years (meaning some had them for less time and others had them for more), which is a lot. Also, notably, 97 percent of the participants reported feeling better about, more educated about, and in greater control of their migraines, whether or not they were still having them. The findings were published in Cephalalgia, the peer-reviewed international medical journal of headache, and presented in poster session at the 2001 International Headache Congress in New York City.³

      This was exciting! At last I had independent verification that my program worked. Looking forward to sharing it with more people, I then created the first iteration of my book proposal, which has finally come to fruition as The Headache Healer’s Handbook.

      So welcome to my headache healer’s world, where you put your hands on your head and use them like biofeedback sensors to stop your pain! Working with pain as sensations and solving headache mysteries is fascinating — and I’m delighted to share my healing secrets with you.

       Introduction

      The Headache Healer’s Handbook presents the comprehensive Mundo Program for self-care relief and prevention in book form. In these pages, you will learn how to find the sources of your headache pain, prevent future attacks, and curb active headaches naturally — without having to resort to medications with their potential side effects.

      Although comprehensive, this book is not one-size-fits-all. It coaches you step by step through an in-depth process of tracking down your triggers while addressing the unique challenges of conquering headaches and embracing self-care.

      Tips and techniques alone cannot inspire people to make changes or sustain them. That’s why this book embodies the somatic experience, a hallmark of the Mundo Program. Somatic self-care is a process of becoming aware of and working with the whole self — body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Gently and logically, the book will guide you inward to find and erase the underlying causes of your headaches, handle obstacles along the way, and move beyond a life defined by pain.

       Parts of the Book and Program

      Each section of the book addresses foundational skills and parts of the program that then prepare you for the next.

      Part 1, “Entering In,” provides the background to begin understanding the mind-body-headache connection and how to be successful with the plan. It introduces and defines the Mundo Program and starts your journey of looking at your headaches in a new light.

      Part 2, “Handling Headache Triggers,” turns you into a headache detective, out to track down your exact headache type and origins. It provides tools and skills to use throughout the program to identify and eliminate headache triggers in all areas of your life, with special attention devoted to migraine and diet.

      Part 3, “Creating Balance through Awareness,” guides you through a full stress-reduction program, including instruction and coaching in centered breathing, meditation, posture, and movement exercises. Its calming practices, everyday solutions, and gentle exercises help to create balance, prevent headaches, and promote overall health and well-being.

      Part 4, “Hands On: The Healing Power of Touch,” develops your kinesthetic abilities and shows in detail how to work directly with tension, holding, and pain in your shoulders, neck, head, and face — and to stop your headache or migraine on the spot.

      Part 5, “The Deeper Realms of Headache,” returns to somatics and how and why life experiences, including trauma, can be held in the body and perpetuate pain. Awareness exercises lead you inward to explore embodied responses, emotions in the body, and centering.

      The conclusion, “Embodying Your New Life,” is the completion segment of the program, where you identify, assess, and appreciate your progress. This final section calls you to envision beyond your headaches and pain and to create the vibrant, full, enjoyable life you have always wanted.

      My client Michelle described her transformation this