Sleep and Migraine: Should You Investigate?
It won’t surprise most people that there’s a link between migraine and poor sleep. A new study confirms this once again, and also highlights a tool that is used in evaluating sleep.
Does poor sleep lead to migraine, or is it the other way around? Could sleep patterns actually lead a person to develop migraine? Or does a bad night simply trigger an attack in someone who is already susceptible?
Probably the most certain is that a bad night or change in sleep schedule (e.g. sleeping in) may trigger an attack (although it may not be the next day), and that poor sleep patterns can worsen migraine patterns.
But here’s the other challenge – migraine attacks themselves may make sleep difficult, even though it would seem to be what you need the most! (We’ve talked a lot about how to get better sleep – here are some sleep tips from our community.)
Studying the Migraine Sleep Link
The study we’re looking at today was published in the journal Frontiers in Neurology in August. Researchers used a questionnaire to evaluate sleep patterns in migraine patients, as well as patients without migraine, for comparison.
The bottom-line result: poor sleep quality increased the risk of migraine 3.981 times compared with good sleep quality.
Looking at age, those over 35 were more likely to see this connection. Women also were more likely to see the link, although the researchers admitted they would have liked to have had more men in the study.
The study also confirmed that “migraine burden” was higher with sleep problems. Patients with migraine and sleep issues are more disabled, have more severe pain, more depression. So whatever causes whatever, it’s very important to improve sleep if you already have migraine.
The weakness of this study is, in a way, its strength. The study used a questionnaire, which means that patients were evaluating their sleep for themselves. Might they minimize certain things, or exaggerate others? It is somewhat subjective.
Another method would be to actually do sleep tests in a lab, but that’s time-consuming and has its own limitations because it’s not a “real-life” situation. It’s great for diagnosing some things, but it’s much more challenging to evaluate overall sleep patterns and habits.
The benefit of filling out a two-page questionnaire is that it’s easy. You could probably do it right now without being very inconvenienced. You could even fill it out twice a year, and look for patterns. A doctor could use it as a part of the toolbox in your diagnosis and treatment.
There simply is no doubt that there’s a connection between sleep and migraine. There are many options when it comes to medications. But some simple lifestyle changes are often far more powerful, more permanent, and have other health benefits as well. If you’re dealing with migraine or headache, sleep should be a major area of investigation.
If you’d like to see if this is something you should look into sooner rather than later, you can take a look at the same questionnaire that these researchers used. It’s called the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) – and here’s a pdf version you can download.
Remember, this is meant to be used by a health professional. However, just reading through might help you find some weak areas in your sleep patterns.
To read the study for yourself, go to Association between sleep quality, migraine and migraine burden.
