Recording sleep and daily stress helps predict the onset of migraines

A sharp, throbbing, continuous headache. The Royal National Academy of Medicine (RANM) defines migraine as a disease of unknown cause, with familial predisposition and female predominance.. For almost 120,000 Spaniards it is the suffering of a pain that cannot be seen and for which there is no cure..

That 4% of the Spanish population suffers from some type of chronic primary headache and experiences this headache more than 15 days a month.. They coexist, as the RANM points out, with a disease characterized by attacks of pulsating headache, unilateral or bilateral, lasting several hours..

But this process is not limited to pain, but is also accompanied by hypersensitivity to stimuli (smells, noises, light), nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, pale skin and great general discomfort.. How does it originate? At the moment there are many exogenous or environmental factors and other endogenous factors that act as triggers of migraine and modify its frequency and intensity..

Regarding how to anticipate and know when a migraine is going to appear, a group of US researchers have analyzed the data of 477 people who, through a mobile application, recorded their moods, energy levels and the appearance of migraines four times a day. day for two weeks.

Morning seizures were associated with poorer self-rated sleep quality and less energy the day before.. Stress and high-energy states were linked to afternoon headaches, adds the study, which is published in the journal Neurology..

Address migraines and their triggers

Migraine is often underdiagnosed and untreated, and even when treated, it can be difficult to treat in time and find strategies to prevent attacks.. This new work looks at ways to more accurately predict when a migraine will occur by using mobile apps to track sleep, energy, emotions and stress to improve the ability to prevent attacks..

For Jesús Porta-Etessam, president of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN), it is “another study to be able to collect data” that serve in the consultation to know more and better when and why patients suffer seizures..

The study published in the scientific journal has some limitations, such as the small number of patients and the “subjectivity” in the recording of data by the patients.. “More data are needed, including more patients and with a longer follow-up to be able to conclude that these findings are similar in all patients with migraine,” Pablo Irimia, a neurologist specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of headaches at the Clinic, told SMC. university of Navarra.

Despite this, both Irimia and Porta-Etessam find it useful for patients in predicting the onset of attacks and learning to manage their migraine.. “Knowing the triggers prepares them so that they can take preventive measures and thus avoid the crisis or start treatment for the episode much earlier,” says Irimia..

How do stress or lack of sleep influence the onset of migraine?

The study found that perceived poor sleep quality, as well as lower-than-usual sleep quality the night before, were associated with an increased risk of migraine the next morning.. A lower-than-usual energy level the previous day was also associated with headache the next morning..

Those factors did not lead to an increased risk of migraine in the afternoon or at night. The only predictors of an afternoon or evening headache were higher stress levels or having above-average energy the previous day.

“These different predictive patterns of morning and later headaches highlight the role of circadian rhythms in headache,” says study author Kathleen R.. Merikangas, of the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. “The findings may give us insight into the processes underlying migraine and help us improve treatment and prevention”.

477 people between 7 and 84 years old participated in the study, including 291 women. Using a mobile app, participants were asked to rate their mood, energy, stress, and headaches four times a day for two weeks.. They also rated their sleep quality once a day and used a sleep and physical activity monitor.. Almost half of the participants had a history of migraine and 59% had at least one morning headache attack during the study.

People with a poorer perception of sleep quality were, on average, 22% more likely to suffer a headache attack the next morning. A decrease in self-reported usual sleep quality was also associated with an 18% increase in the likelihood of experiencing a headache attack the next morning.

Likewise, a reduction in the usual energy level the previous day was associated with a 16% greater chance of having a headache the next morning. Higher average stress and higher-than-usual energy the previous day were associated with a 17% greater chance of experiencing a headache the following afternoon or evening. After accounting for sleep, energy, and stress, neither anxious nor depressed mood was associated with headache attacks.