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������ DuSoldHolistic Health Coach

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Table of Contents

4 Misery, Migraines and Me

12 How I Helped My Mother and Grandmother

14 The Role of Stress Relief, Breath Work and Mindfulness

21 The AlignMii Difference

23 Your Alignment – Body, Diet, Mind and Life

29 Migraine Movements

52 Summary

54 About the Author

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Misery, Migraines, and Me

At some point in your life you realize you are not invincible. I was 17 years old, in the middle of a squatting routine, when I was smacked in the face with this realization.

My knee gave out, I fell to the ground, and it took a good three minutes for me to stand up again. I tried another squat. The pain was immediate, sharp, and aggressive, radiating from my knee up into my thigh. I decided to ignore the pain incident, avoid that exercise, and continue as if everything was okay. That approach didn’t work.

By the time I was 20, I was forced to abandon my career as a chef due to the toll standing for long periods of time took on my body. By this point running was out of the question and sitting with my knees bent at 90 degrees was painful at times. The hard truth was that the pain had become progressively worse and had now spread to my hip, shoulder, and headaches that would sometimes turn into full blown migraines.

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I figured I would eventually need surgery, though I wasn’t sure where I would need it or when that time would be.

Then something wonderful happened.

I was working as a personal trainer, the career I transitioned into after being a chef, and my boss called me into his office asking if I wanted help with my shoulder pain. I graciously accepted his offer, which, as fate would have it, changed my life forever.

For relief of my pain, I was instructed to do the following:

· Lie flat on my face· Extend my arms out in from of me· Hold a bar and try to bend it· Pull my shoulder blades together behind me

This style of exercise was entirely new to me. I held the pose for a total of six minutes as my boss kept repositioning my shoulders and hips. By the end I was panting and sweating uncontrollably. I stood up and found that my current headache, which had been plaguing me for about two weeks, was completely gone. My shoulder range of motion was greater than it had been in the previous year.

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To test the effectiveness, I performed a heavy weighted squat for the first time in three years, to my utter disbelief, with absolutely no pain.

The next day, excited about the previous days’ findings and as an experiment to see how long-lasting the changes might be, I ran a half-mile with no pain, no tension and no headache after the run. I cried.

Now all I wanted was to find out more about this method, understand the mechanism behind why these seemingly simple static and dynamic movements worked, and figure out how to implement them into my life.

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My name is Olyvia DuSold and I am the owner of AlignMii

Based upon my experiences and research, AlignMii was created to help you deal with your chronic pain, including migraines, the stress of pain in your daily life, and the issues that surround posture, weight loss, and overall body fatigue.

AlignMii teaches you to take control of your life.

We presently work in one-on-one and company environments to encourage total wellness including education of do-it-yourself pain relief techniques. These movement sequences are tailored specifically to you or your employees aliments and work place environments.

How did I find out how to do this?

Initially, I discovered it through research. I researched everything I could find concerning posture and its effects on pain in the body. While in college studying nutrition, as food was still a great love of mine even though I do not work in kitchens anymore, I had an epiphany.

I saw a wildly vast connection between what we eat and how the body reacts as evidence in energy levels, the ability to fight off disease and pathogens, hormonal issues running rampant and the astronomical mental health issues plaguing the nation.

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Everything was suddenly related - everything. I realized if you can change the way the body experiences pain through relearning basic movement, you can change the way the body handles disease and other health issues through food, its only fuel source.

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How I Helped my Mother and Grandmother

A few months after I began to make these connections, two big things happened in my family. My grandmother was given a second prescription for her diabetes, and my mother was diagnosed with degenerative disc disease in her lumbar spine.

I asked them both to trust me and see if the knowledge I had learned, up to this point, would allow me to help them. My mother began working with me and my new mentor, the man who had helped me release my pain a few weeks earlier.

Within two weeks, she began to feel better; within three weeks, her pain was gone, and six weeks later she was back in the doctors office and getting a second x-ray to verify if she still needed surgery. The doctors came back into the room completely puzzled and reported they must have been looking at the wrong x-ray the first time she was there because her spine was just fine and showed no signs of degeneration. She would not need surgery at all.

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My grandmother had even faster results. We made minor tweaks to her diet, like the types of carbs she ate, the sources of her protein, and the overall consumption of her fat. Even though it sounds like a lot we made sure not to change her diet too much from what she was already eating. It had more to do with portion control.

Within one week of sticking to this diet, well 80% of the time because let’s face it changing a diet is a very hard thing to do, she had to go to her general doctor because she wasn't feeling well.

It turned out that her blood sugar was too low. The doctor said he didn’t understand since she had only recently been given the second medication. She was taken off this medication entirely, and he decreased the dosage of the first medication because her body was managing her blood sugar so well.

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Stress Relief, Breath Work and Mindfulness Play a Role

I had stumbled across something huge, this idea that simple changes to movement and diet could have such a large impact on a person’s health and life as a whole.

Not only could these practices be implemented easily and adhered to consistently, but in a very short period time the people making these changes would see positive effects on some of their biggest health complaints and issues. On the flip side I realized that being in pain and not eating correctly caused a huge amount of stress within people’s bodies.

I began to incorporate stress relief, breath work, and mindfulness practices into my already existing diet and posture programs as I did more and more research on how stress affects the body. Now, I have a program that I’m proud to say is not only simple but uniquely tailored to fit each individual’s needs, whether personally or within their company.

With the ease of incorporation and the high likelihood of positive results based on both mine and my clients experiences, people are not just excited about this program, they maintain it as a lifestyle change.

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When people ask me, why am I so passionate about what I do, I think back to my mother and my grandmother and how much I was able to help them considering I didn’t know nearly as much then as I do now. They were willing to get educated in the knowledge they needed and now these two women have both become healthier and more empowered to make better decision regarding their health.

I now feel that it is my duty to use my experiences and those of my family and early clients as a tool to educate and encourage others to improve their lives in a myriad of ways.

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My role in this process is to interpret what your body is trying to communicate to you

In my business, AlignMii, I teach people how to once again communicate clearly and effectively with their body.

The results you desire can only be acquired through the work and effort you put forth. This is not like other forms of therapy where you are passively healing. This is an active engagement in your own health.

Your AlignMii program will provide every single tool necessary to succeed and help you achieve your highest potential, but if you are not willing to take responsibility for your own health, then I can tell you right now this program will do you no good.

If, on the other hand, you choose to become an active member in your own rescue, you will see your body, your energy, your mindset, and your life transform and achieve the possibilities you had only dreamed of up until this point. If you choose to become an active member in your own rescue, you will become the hero of your own story.

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Now, let’s consider how this program can help change your life

At AlignMii, we encourage the partnership of education and health, allowing you to choose the way you will feel most empowered every day.

Here is an example:

Imagine you are someone dealing with aches and pains in your shoulders and lower back from work.

Over the past couple of years, you really sense that you're slowing down, feeling more tired in the morning, not being able to lose the weight that you used to shed off quickly, and are pretty constantly stressed out from both work and home life to the point where it has become your new normal.

Typically these challenges would be managed with a combination of medication/massages/chiropractors, going to the gym, getting more sleep, and the good old fashion grit-and-bear-it attitude.

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The AlignMii Differnce

In the situation above we would most likely start with posture therapy, a specific movement sequence that literally retrains your body to move through the world without pain. No in-person appointments required and no stranger touching your body because both of those things can be stressful to deal with.

Instead, through virtual meetings with Olyvia you will have all of your concerns answered and a program tailored to you. This means that your movement sequence will work for you because you have already felt the changes in your body during the previous session.

You will be able to replicate this by simply incorporating your 15 to 30-minute routine into each day. The purpose of this sequence is to realign your joints so your body can work more cohesively while moving. This, in my experience, is the root of most types of modern chronic and acute pain found all over the body.

Once the pain is managed, because no one can do much of anything else when they are in pain, we consider the fatigue and weight loss challenges because yes, these things are very much related. We don’t just guess which diet is right for you, we do a food sensitivity test and clearly define the answer.

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From a place of true knowledge and understanding, we craft a meal plan, specific to your needs, likes and dislikes, as well as time constraints, so that we set you up to succeed.

When we fuel the body right by keeping toxic foods out of your system you no longer have to fight the food that you are eating and instead gain its energy which can be used to get you out of bed in the morning and take you to the gym after work.

From this place, free of pain and revitalized with energy we begin to implement a stress reduction protocol consisting of breathing and attention altering techniques, which is fancy for focusing on the good instead of the bad, applicable in everyday situations.

This allows you stay in a healthy place both physically and mentally giving you a higher chance of maintaining the changes that you are making.

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Your Alignment – Body, Diet, Mind and Life

In short, AlignMii has the approach to wellness you have been looking for.

We see your body as one cohesive unit, and we treat it that way. We want you to feel empowered to deal with your life and all the challenges thrown at you, whether that be from your own body or outside forces. We want you to feel aligned. Aligned with your body, aligned with your diet, aligned with your mindset, aligned with your life - and not just the life you are living, but aligned with the life you have always wanted to live.

In our fast-paced world of quick fixes, magic pills, and one-stop shops with one-size-fits-all mentalities, how do we find something real? How do we find a place that is going to treat us as individually as our problems and give us the time and effort we need to fully understand and incorporate a program into our lives, to truly set us up to succeed?

You lead a chaotic life; we understand that! Trying to get ahead just enough to catch your breath and enjoy the view and not getting swept back up in the craziness is challenging enough. With that said we want you to understand the amount of power you have regarding your everyday life.

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Big Takeaway from AlignMiiBetween· Posture

· Your Diet· Breathing/Stress Management

· Meditation

Your health has many layers that you can completely control.

So, I ask the question: what would you do if you

never had to deal with one of those debilitating

migraines again?

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Let’s Give You a Fighting Chance to Make Your Migraines Disappear and Empower You for Years to Come!

Knowing what I know now and being where I have been I can honestly say that the worst part of being in pain was the headaches that turned into migraines. Nothing was more debilitating.

Because of my desire to help and the vast amount of people that I run into who deal with migraines, from airports terminals to the sidewalk to standing in line at the grocery store or even people who know what I do that reach out, I have created a movement sequence catered specifically to headaches and migraines.

Now it won’t work every time and for every person, simply because nothing is ever the right fit for everyone and there can be huge complexities within the workings of migraines and headaches, but I invite you to give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised.

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Let’s start by getting rid your migraines with proper posture while sitting.

Most people who get migraines have a forward head

posture and rounded back

What this means:

· Your spine is in more of a "C" curve instead of an "S" curve· Your shoulders are most likely rounded forward· Your head is jutting forward of your body to compensate forthe rounded shoulders

What can you do to fix this? Introducing the four steps you can take to prevent and relieve your migraines.

In a perfect world, these four movements could be done at any time and place, but we realize that because of limitations on your time, space and resources, it just might not be possible — because of this we explain the entire movement sequence and encourage you to memorize the last exercise which you can use in a pinch literally anywhere. While at any location be mindful of other triggers (e.g. hydration, sleep, computer time) that may set off a migraine as an extra source of combating this issue.

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Migraine Movements

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Laying Supported – the Most Relaxed You Can Get

This posture is most likely going to be the most comfortable to perform at your home.

• Lie on your back with your legs over a chair/ottoman/couch so your hips and knees are at a right angle

• Snug your butt up to the edge of whatever you are using*If the chair/ottoman/couch is not tall enough, you canstack pillows under your knees so when you relax yourlegs they don’t fall out to the sides

• Place your arms 45 degrees out to each side with yourpalms faced up towards the ceiling

• Relax your upper body (abs, shoulders, and neck)• Hold for five minutes (you can hold for longer if that

feels right for your body*Eventually you should feel your lower back flatten tothe floor – that’s how you know it is working

When lying on your back and elevating your legs to a right angle, all of your joints are fully supported, which allows gravity to work and remove rotation and asymmetry in your body.

*You can feel for asymmetry by noticing if one shoulder, oneside of your pelvis, or an entire side of your body seems to bepushing into the ground more than the other.

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Frog – A Classic Yoga Pose

This posture is most likely going to be the most comfortable to perform at your home.

• Lie on your back with your arms extended out at a45-degree angle by your side, with your hands relaxed andpalms faced up towards the ceiling

• Place your feet flat on the ground touching one anotherwith knees bent

• Let your knees fall out to either side of you while keepingthe soles of your feet touching

• Relax your body completely• Just let gravity pull your knees down to the ground

*Do not push them*Allow your lower back to arch off the ground*Your inner thighs will stretch, and you’ll most likely feel it

• Hold for three minutes

Modification:• If the stretch on your inner thigh is too much place books or

blocks or pillows underneath your knees*Whatever you are using, make sure they are the sameheight

• You want to feel relaxed but like you are still getting an archin your lower back

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This specific movement will show you if your hips are acting differently! If one knee looks like it is higher off the ground than the other, this indicates that your hips are not functioning the same.

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Sitting Inner Thigh Squeeze – Better than “The Clam”

This posture and movement can be performed anywhere there is a chair: home, work, on your commute, including your car, first thing out of bed, during meetings, and so much more.• Sit in a chair with your feet pointed straight ahead

*You want the space between your big and second toe pointing at 12 o’clock (this may feel weird, but it is anatomically straight, we just never do it)*You want your feet hip width apart (that’s about a first and an inch on either side)

• Place and squeeze a pillow between your knees *If you are at work or somewhere you feel awkward using a pillow you can simply let your knees fall together and preform the rest of the movement the same

• Roll your hips forward to place a slight arch in your low back and hold for the remainder of the exercise

• Squeeze the pillow with your knees*On a scale of 1-10 you only want to squeeze at about a 3 or 4, so you can feel your inner thighs engaging.*Ideally you want to feel your upper inner thighs (groin area) doing the work for this movement - if this is hard to get going try to think about it like your hips are doing the squeezing and your knees are following along

• Do three sets of 25 repetitions

Notice if:*One side is squeezing harder than the other or getting fatigued faster

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Standing Quad Contractions – Simple but Effective

This is the motherload of all exercise. As long as you can stand you can do this posture. If you have a wall great, it not you simply set up your feet and squeeze your quads.

• Stand with your heels and butt up against a wall with your feet hip width apart pointing forward*You want the space between your big and second toe pointing at 12 o’clock (this may feel weird, but it is anatomically correct)*You want your feet hip width apart (that’s about a fist and an inch on either side)

• Relax your upper body (abs, shoulders, and neck)*If this causes you to round off the wall you let that happen

• Tighten your thigh muscles and hold for 3 minutes*If your glutes turn on relax them. They may want to turn on, but do not let them.

Notice if:

*Your back body starts engaging and spine begins to feel supported*Your shoulders or head start coming back towards the wall or you are feeling more contact All are wonderful signs that this exercise is working.

Recommended times to hold:• 3 minutes for maintenance• 5 minutes if headache/migraine is coming on• 10 minutes if headache/migraine is full fledged

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These four movements have helped to relieve and prevent many headaches and migraines, and as stated can be applied in almost any location.

The longer you continue to practice these techniques, the more successful and pain free you will be.

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What Causes Migraines and What Do They Feel Like?

This is in no way a full or comprehensive list of the things that can trigger a headache or a migraine, but rather, what I see, through personal and clientexperience, as being the leading and most avoidable factors.

Symptoms of Migraines:• Sudden pain• Odd tightening/pulsing sensation at the base of your skull• Squinting at harsh lighting• Eyes can’t focus• Tension building in the head and body

Reasons for Migraines: • Dehydration• Poor neck position• Poor overall posture that does not allow support• Food/drink irritations (like too much sweet or

processed foods)• Screen time (whether it be computer, cell

phone, or something else)

A more full list of the signs and symptoms ofmigraines can be found at the followingwebsite: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/5005-migraine-headaches

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Triggers can be any number of things in someone’s lifestyle. For a better understanding of your migraines, pay attention to the onset. Ask yourself what may have caused it, what did you do differently, if anything, and if you are seeing a pattern arise look out for it in the future. This doesn't have to be only 24 hours, it could be as far back at 72 hours ago that your body started getting triggered.

I remember when my headaches were starting to feel like they were going to tip into a migraine. My body would constrict, my breathing would get sharp and quick because the stress of having to work or go out or just live my life with a migraine was horrible. It was usually brought on by processed foods and too much screen time.

Once I started meeting more clients I realized that I was in no way the only one. I have a client who is a dentist and works 40-60 hours a week bent over patients with bright lights shining in her eyes. When we first met, her headaches were debilitating, causing her to move slower even though the demand for her time did not change.

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Once we started looking at her lifestyle, her posture, what techniques she was using after onset and for prevention we were able to really change the way that she dealt with headaches. I am happy to report that after a few months she was no longer dealing with her severe headaches.

Once you can identify your patterns and what is causing the onset of your headaches or migraines simple self-care can really be the difference between dissipation and disaster.

Drinking water, moving through the sequence above to get your body supported and aligned, breathing into your diaphragm, and relaxing your body from the onset of stress can do wonders to prevent and even stop the onset of headaches or migraines.

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Migraine Takeaways from AlignMii

• Develop a good posture (incorporate the routine above)

• Help yourself with stress relieving techniques• Consume the right food and drink for your body

that you know makes you feel goodAlignMii has programs that can be uniquely designed for you because everyone experiences pain and life differently.

Your body is one cohesive unit, and when you align your posture, diet, breathing, and incorporate attention altering techniques, you align your life to something that is more than you could ever have imagined.

Let AlignMii balance your body, diet, and mind and ultimately

align your life!

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Develop a good posture (posture)

When we move over a long period of time we tend to develop habits that make the movements we do every day easier.

This is good, except for the fact that we are meant to move dynamically and every once in a while we want to do something like go on a hike with the family, or throw around a ball with your kids, or try to do a new activity like dancing, working out, or rock climbing. The movements that are taught in this sequence, or any sequence designed by AlignMii, are meant to reintroduce pure movements back into your life, meaning individual muscles/muscle groups doing their intended jobs without the use of other muscles around it kicking in to help.

Once every link in your chain is strong, movement becomes easier and you begin to build strength through a full and dynamic range of motion within a given joint. This means that injury due to movement is not as likely to occur.

The other beauty to these sequences is that once you give your body the stimulation it needs to move better the less you have to do. Instead of constantly thinking about how you need to sit up straight or how you need to run to prevent that knee pain, your body will naturally take on its proper posture and automatically do these things for you. The more you incorporate the movement sequences the faster it will happen.

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Attention altering techniques(stress relief)

When we are asked about our day, we tend to complain. It might start off well but eventually it turns into the focus of something we don’t like, something that could have gone better, someone that could have been a better co-worker or something of the like. It’s not our fault in particular, most of us grew up in households like this where people asked, “What’s wrong,” instead of “What was good about this day?” Plus, our society is constantly focused on what we could do to improve our weight, our house, our lifestyle, our family, essentially everything about ourselves.

This can lead to an insane amount of stress. The stress to be better in some way, whether tit be at your job, as a friend, as a partner, as a parent, as a child, to the point where you are borderline perfect in every way.

An effective way to change this automatic outlook of needing to be better all the time is to do the things that bring out the good that is already in our lives, which is a big part of what AlignMii advocates for. Simple things like learning how to breathe into your diaphragm instead of your chest or writing in a gratitude journal or noticing the way you are talking to yourself while in stressful situations and changing your thoughts from negative to positive.

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This is by far the hardest part of the entire AlignMii process due to the fact that we are fighting not only our societal standards but the standards that our family and we have instilled in ourselves. It starts with the little things and finding people who can support our desire to better ourselves. Both are provided by AignMii in a structured, motivational way through lifestyle coaching as well as Facebook groups.

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Consume the right food and drink for your body that you know makes you feel good (nutrition)

Diet is personal. The times we eat and what we eat and how those foods then affect us can cause symptoms and issues we consider a normal part of living like fatigue, hormonal imbalances, depression, and brain fog.

The truth of the matter is that we don’t have to feel this way constantly, but in order to feel better we need to know what foods or chemicals we are ingesting that are causing these signs of distress in the first place. Some classic examples of foods and drinks that show up as constant irritants for people are things like heavily processed foods, white processed grains (e.g. white bread and white tortillas), heavily sweetened foods and drinks (e.g. sodas and sweets), meaning that the best options are to drink water as frequently as possible and to cook fresh foods in dishes you enjoy and are easy to make.

Once you discover which foods you are sensitive to with one of the food sensitivity tests that AlignMii offers we will gladly take it from there. We'll be able to help you find the diet that is right for you and customize a meal plan that best fits your likes, dislikes, budget and time frame, as well as taking all the foods you are sensitive to out of your menu.

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Eating good, healing, and nutritious foods are going to help you repair from the gut out having far reaching effects that we may not even attribute to our diets.

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Summary

Through posture therapy, good diet, breath work, meditation, and stress management, AlignMii empowers you to deal with all of life’s challenges and treats your body as one cohesive unit. AlignMii works with you to heal and lessen any discomfort or pain you may be experiencing. We want you to feel completely aligned, aligned with your body, aligned with your diet, aligned with your mindset, aligned with your life - and not just the life you are living, but aligned with the life you have always wanted to live.

Life is chaotic, and chronic pain in your body, especially migraine pain, can cause suffering. With our specific movements, we can give you the power to take back your life and release the pain you are experiencing. Relief is found in a few simple daily movements plus making sure you’re hydrated, adjusting your posture position, eating the right diet for you and learning ways to reduce your daily stress.

As you align your body and your mind, you will experience a better life, a pain free life, leaving more time to live the life that you have always wanted.

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About the Author

Movement had always been a large part of Olyvia’s life.It was her most honest form of personal expression and freedom. At age 17, she sustained an injury that prevented her from doing squats or running long distances.

She ignored it to finish her Le Cordon Bleu program and pursue her dreams to be a chef and travel the world, but three years later, at age 20, the pain had spread throughout her body and made walking, running, sitting or standing for too long incredible painful in her right knee, left hip, and right shoulder. Headaches were a common occurrence and migraines would plague her vision for hours. When Olyvia returned home she began her studies to become a Naturopathic Doctor, receiving her AA with a medical background emphasis at Ventura College.

She earned certificates in Postural Alignment and Diagnostic Nutrition as well as her Massage license. She studied breath work and Zen Buddhism to implement stress reduction in her own life. These studies led her to develop a holistic approach to good health and pain free living for her clients and their individual needs.

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Her idea:

Combine what she had learned about posturetherapy with her culinary prowess and calming meditativetechniques to help people heal naturally and give them theopportunity to be in control of their own lives.

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