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Progressive Muscle Relaxation to Conquer Sleep Issues

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Migraine is often associated with trouble sleeping. This means that a sleep disorder could be making your migraine worse, or your migraine may be contributing to your lack of sleep.

sleep trouble

One of the comorbid conditions, a condition that tends to go along with migraine, is restless legs syndrome (RLS) (also called Willis-Ekbom Disease). In RLS, you have trouble sleeping because of sensations in your legs. Your legs feel restless, or throbbing, or aching.

In searching for the latest research for RLS, I was reminded of one that is being used currently that has also been used for a long time for insomnia itself – and that is, progressive muscle relaxation. It was first described in medical literature almost a hundred years ago, but it’s still being studied today.

The beauty of progressive muscle relaxation is that you can learn to do it at home in bed, with no devices or drugs, and no spending of money. 🙂 It’s a technique that has been used with migraine patients, restless legs syndrome patients, and insomnia patients alike. That means that it also may help improve symptoms in a number of related conditions.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a specific way to tense and then relax muscles throughout the body. Detailed descriptions can be found in the linked articles below, but it’s not complicated. And trials have had quite positive results.

If you have trouble sleeping, do yourself a favour and check out an article or two below. This is a simple technique that may make a significant difference.

Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS Awareness: Migraine and Chronic Headache Big Issues

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Today is Fibromyalgia Awareness Day.  Actually, it’s also Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (otherwise known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) Awareness Day.

Both Fibromyalgia and ME/CFS are nasty relatives of migraine.  Fibromyalgia in particular is a well-known comorbid condition with migraine.  How exactly these interact is a complicated issue.

We do know that chronic headache and/or migraine conditions are very common in patients with fibromyalgia.  There are also many treatments common to both.

If you can get a proper diagnosis of ME/CFS and/or Fibromyalgia, your doctor may be able to help you get treatments that are more likely to help with migraine as well.  If your doctor can have a more full knowledge of your medical history, she has a better chance of finding treatments that work.

Here is a little more information:

Cluster Headaches may ease in Pregnancy (and other surprising facts about women and cluster)

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A recently published study explored the unique character of cluster headache in women.  Cluster in women has not been studied a lot because it’s so rare.  In fact, cluster in men is rare, but it’s much more common in men than in women.

So how are woman clusterheads unique?  Here are a few of the findings:

  • Women tend to develop cluster at a younger age
  • About half the time, symptoms improve with pregnancy
  • Women generally don’t respond as well to sumatriptan (nasal spray/injection), but respond better to inhaled lidocaine.  Women tend to be less responsive to preventatives in general.
  • Women tend to have more attacks per day
  • Cluster attacks are more likely to be triggered by migraine triggers
  • Women are more likely to have pain in the jaw, cheek and ear
  • Comorbid conditions for women are more likely to include asthma and/or depression
  • Women tend to have shorter aura duration than men

The researchers admit that one drawback of this study is that often cluster patients do not get properly diagnosed, or people are diagnosed with cluster when they have something else.  Finding a large group to study is very difficult with a rare condition such as cluster.

To read more of the details, check out Female cluster headache in the United States of America: What are the gender differences?

15 Diseases, disorders and syndromes that go along with Migraine

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What is comorbid with migraine, and what does that mean?  Comorbidity basically refers to two conditions that tend to go together.  That doesn’t mean that one caused the other.  In fact, we usually don’t know why they go together.

Comorbid with Migraine - is there a link?

It could be there’s a common cause, or maybe one could cause the other.  It could be something in the environment, or something genetic, or even a coincidence.

But, of course, when we see the same diseases going together over and over, the coincidence hypothesis eventually goes out the window.

What we do know is that the two (or more) things interact.  Sometimes there can be a common treatment.  Sometimes it means that you can’t take a certain medication, because it may increase your risk of something else.

So it’s important to think about what you may have on top of migraine disease, and it’s important to talk to your doctor about it.

Now there’s a great deal of debate when it comes to migraine comorbidity.  Most of these have pretty good research behind them, but sometimes research conflicts and there’s debate about whether a certain thing should be in the list.

But for what it’s worth, here are 15 common diseases, disorders and syndromes that tend to go hand in hand with migraine.  That does not mean you will definitely have any of these . . . just that they seem to be more common in migraine patients than the general population.  Ones that seem to be more common come first:

  1. Depression
  2. Anxiety
  3. Stroke
  4. Cardiovascular Disease
  5. Hypertension
  6. Epilepsy
  7. Fibromyalgia
  8. Thyroid Disease
  9. Mania/Bipolar Disorder
  10. Panic Attacks
  11. Raynaud’s syndrome
  12. Restless Leg Syndrome
  13. Essential Tremor
  14. Irritable Bowel Syndrome
  15. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome


Now wait – did I miss one that you’re familiar with?  Or have you found one or more of the 15 to be true of you?  Leave a comment, and let us know how knowing this has helped or hindered in your treatment.

And if you’re thinking about the connection for the first time – talk to your doctor!

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The articles on Headache and Migraine News are © 2004-2026 J. Cottrill.
Every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of each article, and to point you to further sources of information. However, this site is for informational purposes only and should never replace a visit to your doctor.