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Today I’m excited to bring you a really insightful interview with Dr. Doni Wilson, a naturopathic doctor and bestselling author whose latest book is “Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health.”

For Dr. Doni, frequent and severe migraines began in her 20s. A single migraine could affect her for days. As she became a naturopathic doctor, she researched doggedly migraine causes and tried a slew of things that didn’t help. Finally, she found a combination of approaches that ended her migraines.

In this episode, we discuss…

  • What worked and didn’t work for her in curtailing and ultimately stopping her migraines
  • The dietary change that decreased her migraine frequency by half
  • Migraines relative to monthly cycles
  • The effect of stress on migraines
  • The genetic factors that increased her likelihood for migraines
  • How clearing toxins from her body and home further reduced migraines
  • How she calmed her nervous system and eliminated migraines for good with plant medicine (ayahuasca)
  • And how her search for her own answers helped her become a better doctor

Doni Wilson is a Naturopathic Doctor, certified professional midwife, certified nutrition specialist, and bestselling author of “Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health.”

For more than 22 years, she has helped thousands of patients overcome health challenges and achieve wellness by using specific strategies that address the whole body and ultimately resolve the underlying causes of distress. Dr. Doni suffered from migraines for over 20 years, and in the process of solving them, she developed her Stress Recovery Protocol. Dr. Doni brings awareness to the impact of stress on our health and how it is possible to recover from burnout and become resilient to stress in the media and at public and professional events. You can find her blog, podcast, called How Humans Heal, and her Self C.A.R.E. program at http://www.DoctorDoni.com.

You can also find Dr. Doni on Instagram and on Facebook.

Check out Dr. Doni’s book, Master Your Stress, Reset Your Health: The Personalized Program to Calm Anxiety, Boost Anxiety and Beat Burnout. Dr. Doni Wilson shows that the key to breaking the cycle is finding and treating your unique stress type. After more than 20 years working with thousands of patients, Dr. Doni has found that people generally fall into one of five types based on their adrenaline and cortisol levels throughout the day.

If you ever have migraines or even severe headaches, you don’t want to miss this episode. It’s packed with insights.

Watch and/or read Dr. Doni’s full story and find links to resources mentioned in the episode down below.

Doni’s Migraine Success Story

Not long after completing college, Doni Wilson began suffering from migraines. Initially, they seemed tied to her monthly cycles, but soon came on more frequently and without a consistent pattern.

As Doni started naturopathic school, she began experimenting with promising treatments to ease her migraine pain, from diet to detox to acupuncture and beyond. But her migraines persisted.

“I was a student of every possible thing and I was still getting sick,” she says. “In fact, sometimes I even was more sick after some of those treatments.”

After graduation, she moved to New York City to support patients after 9/11. And still, her migraines followed her and intensified with the increased stress.

For years, severe migraines, which included vomiting, hit her about every two weeks, forcing her to rest for days during and after.

What Helped Her Migraine Pain

As a naturopathic doctor, she researched every avenue. Everything pointed to migraines being caused by stress – in all its forms, from the traditional stress we recognize from work or other sources, or stressors such as toxins or infections.

“Ninety-five percent of our health issues, in general, are ultimately related to our stress exposure,” she says. “And what I learned from all this research is that it’s a combination of our stress exposure and really our lack of stress recovery, so it forced me to look at, how am I allowing myself to recover from stress?”

What she uncovered led her to take steps that ultimately stopped her migraines:

Self-care breaks – She built in walks outside, time off work, more sleep and other breaks to improve her resilience to stress.

Diet changes – Dr. Doni landed on gluten as a possible trigger. By cutting it out of her diet, she curtailed the frequency of her migraines by about 50%.

Toxin reduction – She began clearing the toxins in and around her body. Lab testing showed high levels of flame retardant, leading her to toss her memory foam mattress. With that step, her migraines reduced even more.

Plant medicine – Dr. Doni tried ayahuasca, an ancient form of plant medicine, based on its promise of calming the nervous system. Following that powerful experience a few years ago, she hasn’t had a migraine since.

These days, Dr. Doni continues to follow the same cornerstones that helped her heal, including diet, a low-toxin life, and self-care and stress recovery. And she has since been in more than 70 ayahuasca ceremonies.

Her own journey, and her experience helping her patients clear their migraines and other conditions, show the body’s resilience.

“I truly do believe that our bodies can heal and can adapt and change when we change the input we’re giving,” she says. “If we’re willing to change our diet and change our sleep patterns and change our daily routines and figure out which nutrients and herbs are missing for our metabolism – that can be very individualized – then we can solve a lot of health issues.”

More Health Success Stories

Find more integrative and natural health success stories on our site. If you enjoyed this, you might like: With Breathing for Migraines, Lifelong Pain Finally Stops.