The Beginner’s Guide to Meditation for Migraine

If you live with migraine, you've probably heard people tell you that it's "all in your head," or that you can just make your pain vanish with positive thinking. Not true! This is one of those migraine myths that just won’t go away.

However, there is a definite mind-body connection for many people with migraine. We know that stress and anxiety are some of the most common triggers. And meditation is proven to help relieve stress as well as reducing pain.

Can meditation be an effective alternative treatment for migraine headache and other symptoms? Science says yes!

How meditation can help migraine headaches

While researchers are still investigating the effects of meditation on migraine, we know that overall, meditating can have positive effects on several aspects of health. These include:

• Sleep: Insomnia is a big problem for many people with migraine. Mindfulness meditation has been shown to promote better sleep, reducing insomnia and fatigue.
• Anxiety and depression: Meditation also appears to promote wellbeing and reduce distressing thoughts in people with generalized anxiety disorder and/or depression.
• Stress: If stress is a migraine trigger for you, it’s essential to learn how to control it. Meditation can calm the stress response in your body and mind.
• Pain: Meditation also can be a powerful way to help manage chronic pain. 

Other benefits of meditation: It can be done by anyone, it costs nothing, and it has no adverse side effects!

There are many forms of meditation. One of the most popular is mindfulness meditation. This involves paying attention to the present moment and accepting the thoughts and feelings you experience. When an unwanted or intrusive thought occurs, don’t fight it or judge it. Simply observe it, and let it go.

Another type is spiritual meditation, which focuses on connecting with a higher power. One small study found that spiritual meditation did reduce the frequency of migraines and physiological reactivity to stress. In this study, 92 people who had two or more migraine attacks per month were each taught a particular meditation technique: spiritual meditation, internally focused secular meditation, externally focused secular meditation, or progressive muscle relaxation.

The meditation participants each chose a simple phrase that was spiritual or secular in nature and used it to focus their sessions. They practiced the technique for 20 minutes a day for 30 days. Researchers found that use of over-the-counter migraine pain medication decreased in all groups. However, only the spiritual meditation group saw a statistically significant drop in migraine frequency.

Other types of meditation include focused meditation, visualization meditation, and loving-kindness meditation. People use various things to help them focus: deep breathing, candle flames, even the moon.

The benefits of meditation for migraine stress management

For many people, stress is a significant migraine trigger. It's not only the stressful experience or situation that's the problem, but the "let-down" period that follows, when stress levels are decreasing. One study found the risk of migraine onset was nearly five times greater in the first six hours of a decline in stress.

It's impossible to get rid of all the stress in our lives. However, mindfulness can train your mind to better deal with stress. A review of more than 200 different studies found that mindfulness meditation was effective for reducing stress, anxiety and depression.

How does this work? Regularly practicing mindfulness seems to help people regulate their emotions and attention, changing certain stress pathways in the brain. Let's say you're hit with a ton of stress all at once: your rent is going up, your manager is giving you a hard time, and your son is failing English. You might feel physically drained, be unable to sleep, and be dreading a migraine attack.

Meditation can give you the ability to acknowledge the stress and take a step back from it. Instead of being consumed with worry about the past or the future, you can focus on the present. How are you feeling right now? Can you accept your emotions, acknowledge that this stressful situation is temporary, and let go of your anxiety?

The benefits of meditation for migraine pain relief

There’s a definite link between meditation and pain perception. “Mindfulness meditation, a mind-body intervention combining focused attention on the breath with a reduction in the awareness of external sensations and consequent thoughts, has been shown by many studies as a moderately effective approach for pain relief,” according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

How does this work? We don't really know. Theories include:

• Meditation gives you a mental framework that helps you cope with pain
• Meditation can produce a feeling of control over pain
• Meditation can distract you from pain
• Meditation can be a source of spiritual support

We do know that the brain's perception of pain is incredibly complex. So are the effects of meditation. One well-known study concluded that meditation “does not reduce pain through one avenue but rather multiple, unique neural mechanisms.” 

Try CEFALY to Prevent & Relieve Migraine Pain

How to get started with meditation for migraine headaches

If you've never tried it before, meditation may sound difficult - even impossible, if you have a busy brain. It's not! It just takes practice. Here are a few ways to begin your migraine meditation practice. 

Just do it. One approach to meditation is to simply sit in a position that’s comfortable for you, close your eyes and pay attention to your breath. When your mind wanders, gently return your attention to the breath. Don’t judge or criticize yourself.

Listen to a guided meditation. You can find these on YouTube and other sites, or on popular apps like Headspace and Insight Timer. Just follow the teacher’s voice.

Take a class. Studying meditation with an instructor — whether in person or online — can help you explore the experience and stay committed long term.

Meditate with others. The UMass Memorial Health Center for Mindfulness offers free weekly online sessions that include a guided meditation, reflection and discussion.

Try the body scan approach. This can be really effective for people living with chronic pain, says stress reduction expert Jon Kabat-Zinn. His meditation method involves lying on the floor and paying close attention to each part of the body in turn. Notice any pain, acknowledge the pain, and breathe through it. Don't expect pain to go away, he says. Rather, this helps you learn from your pain and better manage it.

Moving forward: how to keep up your migraine meditation practice

Trying meditation one time won’t make a difference. The real benefits come from developing a daily practice of meditation for migraine relief. The key is: Don’t get discouraged. And don’t criticize yourself! It takes time to create healthy habits for living with migraine.

Try connecting your migraine practice with something you already do every day. For instance, do you typically use the 20-minute PREVENT program on your CEFALY in the evenings? Then take five or ten minutes beforehand to meditate.

Tracking your progress can also keep you motivated. Try the free CeCe Migraine Management app. It's an intuitive way to log your migraine triggers, symptoms and treatments. You can look back at trends over time to get a sense of what's working for you. As you develop your migraine meditation practice, do you notice any changes in the frequency or severity of your migraine attacks?

Learn more about CEFALY today

If you're searching for effective drug-free migraine treatment, it's time to try CEFALY. CEFALY treats the root cause of migraine pain. It sends tiny electrical impulses through an electrode placed on the forehead to stimulate the trigeminal nerve, reducing the frequency and intensity of migraine attacks.