This yoga hack will control your migraines – and it’s expert-approved!
Most mornings, shortly after 6 am, I can be found in my living room with my purple yoga mat rolled out in front of me, practicing my best downward-facing dog or one-legged pigeon pose. This is how I choose to start my day, but it’s also how I need to start my day, if I want to make sure that it will be a good one.
Doing yoga as often as possible is one of many lifestyle choices that I have made in order to keep migraines at bay. Among them are getting enough sleep, avoiding foods that contain lactose and eating regularly throughout the day, all of which help me to achieve the balance that I need to prevent a migraine from starting.
Trigger reasons
Researchers used to think migraine was a vascular condition – one related to the blood vessels – but it’s now classed as neurological, which means it’s related to the nervous system. Migraine is a disorder which makes you more sensitive to certain ‘triggers’ – things that wouldn’t normally cause your body to react.
What triggers your migraines might be different to the things that trigger mine, but being dehydrated, getting too little sleep or too much stress, for example, can all trigger the pain, sickness, exhaustion and confusion that come with a migraine. Quite often, it’s several triggers working in conjunction that bring on an attack.
When migraines hit, they can hit hard. Depending on your symptoms, mid-migraine it can be difficult to see or stand up, let alone think clearly, go to work or look after your family. In the Global Burden of Disease Study created by the World Health Organisation (a collaboration of over 1,800 researchers from 127 countries), migraine was found to be the sixth most disabling condition. And there’s no cure.
Migraine has such an enormous impact on people’s lives, it’s no wonder that many of the eight million people in the UK who live with migraines turn to medication for help. According to UK charity The Migraine Trust (www.migrainetrust.org), migraines costs the NHS £150 million a year, mostly for medication. That’s an awful lot of drugs.
Keeping a diary can help you identify your migraine triggers. Common triggers include a lack of food or sleep, stress, hormonal changes and alcohol.
Research into migraines is ongoing. A new preventative migraine medication called Aimovig has recently been approved in Europe for adults who have migraines for at least four days a month. It’s currently awaiting NHS recommendations. For some sufferers, this will be a lifeline. But certain migraine medications aren’t available to everyone and they definitely don’t work for everyone. Furthermore, taking too much can even lead to medication over-use headaches.
The migraine treatment medication that I was prescribed left me with unpleasant, woozy side-effects that could, at times, feel as bad as the attack itself. For me, a migraine can be like an unstoppable freight train. Painkillers and prescription drugs can ease the symptoms, but they rarely put an end to an attack. The migraine has to come to its natural conclusion, which can take days.
A body in balance
Two years ago, I decided to try taking control of my migraines naturally, and I quickly learnt that it’s all about balance. Migraine doesn’t like sudden change, so finding ways to keep an even keel is key. What will work for you is as individual as your migraine triggers are, but I believe that using mindfulness as a way to find and maintain that even keel can help us all.
Mindful-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a programme that uses techniques such as mindfulness and gentle yoga to help us learn how to cope with stress. MBSR helps with a wide range of conditions including migraine, and one US study found that even an eight-week course of MBSR can make migraines less severe and less disabling.
Before I knew this, I was already practising some mindfulness and yoga, every once in a while. Yet it was only when I realised that they could help prevent my migraines that I started to make them a priority.
Cheryl MacDonald, director of YogaBellies, has had migraines for over a decade and says that yoga is key to keeping her migraines away.
“I really feel the difference when I’m not practising yoga,” says Cheryl. “If I haven’t been practising for three or four days, that can start a migraine.”
If Cheryl feels some of the warning symptoms of a migraine, she uses alternate nostril breathing to try to stop the attack in its tracks before it starts. Migraine warning symptoms vary from person to person, but they can include tiredness, irritability, food cravings, digestive trouble, bursts of energy and difficulty concentrating. “As long as I recognise when I’m feeling out of sorts, I can stop the migraine from becoming a full-blown attack,” Cheryl explains.
Yoga the night away
Yet sometimes that freight train just keeps coming, and if that happens, Cheryl takes to her mat. The 18 years she has been practising yoga have taught her that poses which encourage blood flow to the head are fantastic for helping to ease her symptoms.
“When I feel a migraine coming on, I do a practice with a lot of forward bends to increase blood flow to the brain, as well as restorative postures,” she says. “Downward-facing dog is extremely therapeutic and helpful for relieving nausea.”
Yoga is a great place to start, but when you’re trying to find migraine-busting balance, how you handle stress is important, too. Just as migraines don’t like overstimulating shots of espresso and sudden flashes of bright sunlight, emotional highs and lows can also be triggers. Which is where mindfulness comes in. Not just when you’re stressed, but every day.
Peppermint tea may help to ease migraine symptoms as peppermint relaxes nerves and muscle spasms in the gut that transmit the signals to the brain that cause a headache.
“The body’s nervous systems become overloaded with chemicals that won’t allow us to relax when we’re in situations we find stressful,” says Dr Lisa Greenspan, a counselling psychologist who encourages her clients to use mindfulness. “Practising mindfulness regularly can prepare the body to react differently when a stressful cue or trigger arises.”
The great thing about mindfulness is that a regular practice of just 10 minutes a day can help us to stay balanced and handle stressful moments better. Over time, the cumulative effect of the practice will make it easier to cope with the highs and lows that life sends your way, whether it’s a bad day at work or delays on the train.
Even doing something as simple as remembering to take one mindful breath each time you pop the kettle on can add up to a lot of mindful moments throughout the day. In turn, the day-to-day stresses that you can’t avoid will be less likely to trigger a migraine.
Find the freedom
It is, of course, impossible to remove all migraine triggers from our daily lives, so taking control of your migraines is about creating your own personal set of strategies; the better equipped you are, the more likely you are to stay migraine-free. And, the more you practise these strategies, the easier it will be to tap into them when you need them. So try things out, discover what works for you and stick with it.
I’ve come to the point where I can recognise if something is happening in my day that could trigger an attack. If I’m very tired, I’ll take a nap instead of going for a run. If I’m working flat-out to meet tight deadlines, I’ll make sure that I take breaks for some mindful moments, rather than squeezing in a few more minutes of work.
When I’m feeling out of sorts, I get on my yoga mat and do a few downward dogs. Taking charge of my migraines naturally really has changed my life for the better. When I’m not in balance, migraine rules my life. When I’m balanced, I feel free.
Easy ways to find your balance
Try these two simple exercises to help relieve stress and tension
Alternate nostril breathing
Sit comfortably and rest your left hand in your lap. Gently place your right thumb against your right nostril to close it and breathe in through your left. Use your left forefinger to close your left nostril and release your thumb from the right. Breathe out through your right nostril, then breathe in through it. Close your right nostril with your thumb again and release your left to breathe out. Repeat.
10-minute mindfulness practice
* Stand or sit with your back against a wall. Look straight ahead and lean forward slightly, then back a bit before settling in the centre, which is your neutral spine position.
* Imagine that you have a heavy suitcase in your left hand and drop your shoulder down as if the suitcase is pulling your arm towards the ground. Then, still holding that imaginary suitcase, do the same with a second one in your right hand. Come back up to centre with both pretend cases still weighing your hands down.
* Release any tension in your jaw by opening your mouth slightly and resting your tongue at the back of the roof of your mouth.
* There’s nothing important to look at in this moment, so allow your gaze to shift until your eyes are out of focus. And breathe.
From migraines to sleep
Yoga doesn't just help migraines, it can also improve your quality of sleep. Discover the ancient Indian secret that will give you the best sleep of your life.
