Your Tips – Music and Headache
Do you use music to prevent or treat a headache or migraine attack?
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Sure, we all know that music can make us happy or sad or whatever. But Dr. Luciano Bernardi from Italy’s Pavia University believes that music may also have a direct impact on your cardiovascular system. In other words, it’s not just that emotions affect your heart – it’s also that your heart may affect your emotions – and music affects both directly.
In a study using classical music published in 2009, Bernardi’s team found that music had an impact on respiration rates, blood pressure, circulation rhythms, and the narrowing of blood vessels.
Diseases such as migraine do involve a complex relationship between what happens in the brain and neurological system, and the heart and blood vessels. Could this subtle influence that music has on physical responses become a part of migraine treatment?
Scientifically speaking, the answer would appear to be – yes, but it’s not that simple. Music has a very complex, ever-changing influence on the body. It may not be easy to discover and then prove in a lab just how it can be used in treatment.
In complex cases like this, you often have a head start, because you know your own body and are aware of its subtleties – even if you’re not always conscious of them.
So back to you – have you found music to be helpful? How? Is it a preventative? A coping strategy? Has it ever been a help during a migraine attack? What about various types of headache disorders?
Share your comments below!
10 December 2011 @ 9:22 am
It’s funny, I was just noticing last month what an effect music had on me. I’ve recently been on a few different meds for migraine control, and I noticed that on one of the meds I couldn’t listen to hard rock music without it hurting my head.
I’ve never thought about trying to use it during (or after) a migraine. I’ll have to see if it helps.
I’m looking forward to reading comments from others on what kind of music helps them.
10 December 2011 @ 6:35 pm
Working with patients -who have chronic pain and migraines as a nurse I’ve always encouraged patients to use music to reduce pain and help relax them and slow the breathing rate which helps keep your blood pressure down….I always ask a patient or family member to keep the favorite type of music low in the background really seems to help-try it.
12 December 2011 @ 1:48 am
Thanks James for bringing this up. For several years, I have been aware that having some music playing softly in the background, helps keep my thoughts focused and my emotions in check. Especially when driving in city traffic. Usually during an attack, I can’t stand any kind of noise, so I don’t use music. Interesting possibilities though. Have a Merry Christmas.
12 December 2011 @ 4:07 pm
Music definitely helps, so long as it avoids heavy snare and heavy bass drum. Lots of cymbal crashes also suck, but a skip pattern played on the bell of the cymbal (e.g., as Neil Peart often does) isn’t really offensive, and brushes of course beat sticks.
I listen to a lot of what I’d call “soundscape” music when my head hurts: “The Seduction of Claude Debussy” by the Art of Noise is a good example, as are Enya albums, Lemon Jelly, Cowboy Junkies, Psapp, some of Annie Lennox’s solo stuff, and of course, my entire Steely Dan collection.
12 December 2011 @ 4:11 pm
Hold on, I am still on the part where Chris is discussing Neil Peart!!!!! I can talk Rush all day!! 🙂 🙂
Seriously tho, for me, I listen to Enya, Jim Brickman and Air Supply sometimes during mig attacks…
12 December 2011 @ 11:14 pm
Interesting! I haven’t used music to help during a migraine, I generally prefer to try to sleep. But the corollary is probably true for many of us, i.e. that loud, sudden or “jazzy”discordant music will often cause me to have a migraine if other conditions are conducive.
13 December 2011 @ 6:09 pm
Us And Them: Pink Floyd Symphonic does it for me, though I have to be careful with the volume. I have fallen asleep to it for years.
Interesting that bass drums cause problems for some people. It’s high pitches that flatten me. During milder ones, I can often handle Disturbed or Rammstein, but Celtic is far too much.
14 December 2011 @ 4:19 am
I have a friend that suffers from migraines and when he has an attack he tries to relax and listen to buddha bar music, most of the times it helps him.
17 June 2015 @ 4:31 pm
I swear by this and many think I’m nuts. I’m chronic and get them bad but I can’t wait for the weekend where I put on my dancing shoes and head out to the live bands where I dance for 4 hours a night to blaring music. It started as defiance against weekend migraines I was going to have anyways. What I discovered that while I was dancing to the live bands was that I wouldn’t have pain because I was so distracted by the beat of the music and the rythm of my movements. As long as I’m dancing, then I’m fine. The next day I crash and burn, but I’m always in pain anyways so it’s no big deal. Then, I rest and go again the next night. I call it going into the eye of the storm, and I am NOT dosing up on extra painkillers.