Sleep and migraine

Article explains how important sleep is for migraine sufferers.

migrainetrust.org/research-a … 2012-14811

Try to go to bed and get up at the same time each day, as sleeping during the correct phase of your circadian cycle is important.

Understand your sleep need, including both the timing of sleep (when feels right for you to go to bed), and the duration of sleep (most adults need about 8 hours a night).

Do try and spend some time outdoors or in natural light during the daytime, as this provides an important cue to your brain for finetuning timing of the body clock.

Try and make your sleeping environment as restful as possible, including sufficient darkness and quiet, comfortable bedding and few devices around the bed, particularly those with lights.

Exercise, preferably before dinner rather than before bed, can be helpful as can stopping smoking as nicotine has a stimulant effect and suppresses melatonin.

It would be sensible to recommend that you don’t use your bed for activities that could be done elsewhere (such as watching TV, studying), and try to avoid staying in bed if you are wide-awake.

Avoiding caffeine before bed is recommended, as is avoiding alcohol, as this actually reduces the overall quality of your sleep rather than improving your sleep as is commonly assumed.

I havent been officially diagnosed with MAV, but I’m seeing someone for VRT and they suspect that this is what I have.

I always find that my imbalance is worse the day after a bad night’s sleep! I’ll be much dizzier, headachy and feeling low.

Do any of you find that you’re waking up very early with this? Since it kicked off for me in December I have been waking up between 5am and 6:30am every morning. Sometimes if I wake in the night I find it very hard to go back to sleep. I’m not all that tired as a result of waking up early, so I guess it’s not that bad a thing but sometimes I’d like to sleep a little later!

Thanks Robert, I found this very interesting. Almost all my attacks occur in the night. I used to think and be told it was because my head was in the wrong position because I was misdiagnosed with an inner ear problem. Now I know it is the wonders of vestibular migraine. If I know I have been over doing it a nap during the day can prevent a fall blown attack.