At Home Migraine Relief

If you’re looking for a more natural approach to migraine relief, try these 5 remedies that can be done at home to help relieve your pain.

1. Get plenty of rest and sleep. Your body heals best when you’re sleeping, so the more *quality* sleep you can get, the better. Resting will allow you the time to recover, but as with sleep, it must be *quality* rest. Avoid TV/computer screens which could potentially trigger another headache or migraine episode due to its high contrast light. A recent review looked at five studies involving over 130 patients suffering from migraines and they found improvements in the severity or frequency between 68% – 81%.

2. Drink more water throughout the day. This may seem like an obvious one (because who hasn’t had their dad tell them growing up to drink more water or eat something if we had a headache come on?), but it also means avoiding the things that cause you to lose water. Think coffees and sodas.

3. Place a cold pack on your head or neck. When the body is cold in an area, the blood vessels in that area constrict (vasoconstriction) which reduces the inflammation in the area by decreasing the amount of inflammatory cytokines in the area. This plus the numbing effect coldness causes allows for temporary pain relief. A study from 2006 showed a 50% reduction of migraine pain in a group of individuals by utilizing frozen caps. 

4. Massage Acupressure points that are associated with relieving migraine pains. We’ve chatted about it before, see the whole article here. There are specific points that when stimulated by applying pressure for 15-30 seconds, you can feel relief relatively quickly. 

5. Try some lavender. Lavender is a natural and powerful plant extract that has been used for centuries to soothe aches and pains. In fact, the word “lavender” comes from an old English verb meaning “to heal.” In a study of people with migraines, participants who diffused lavender aromatherapy for 20 minutes were able to reduce their migraine symptoms.


Hang in there!!

– Dr. Collins