Sleep schedule

One thing I bring up to every patient I have ever treated with headaches is their sleep schedule. Many of us, unfortunately due to our hectic schedules, will sacrifice our sleep to squeeze out a little extra time at night to binge our favorite Netflix show. While you really want to watch that next episode, I would highly recommend you create a sleep schedule that you keep 7 days a week. Also, I know you want to sleep in on the weekends, but inconsistent sleep cycles keep your body guessing and don’t allow for a proper sleep cycle to be established. These sleep cycles allow your body to recover from your day and process everything that happened throughout. Without proper recovery eventually your body will have enough, and the unfortunate side effect can be a headache or migraine.

Exercise

I know you are thinking how in the world can exercise help with headaches. Well according to the American Migraine Foundation “There’s evidence to suggest regular exercise can help reduce the frequency of headache attacks: not only does exercise reduce stress, a common migraine trigger, but it also helps regulate sleep, elevates painkilling and mood-elevating endorphins, and can combat obesity—all of which can contribute to migraine frequency.” That is a five birds one stone solution that future you will thank you for starting!

Caffeine Intake

Don’t worry I am not going to tell you to give up your coffee. Caffeine though can be a trigger when it comes to headaches and migraines. Or more accurately excess amounts of caffeine can trigger a headache. The all to common flip side of that is finding yourself in a situation without coffee on a stressful day that causes the unfortunate morning headache that you must put up with the rest of the day. So, what do you do? I suggest enjoying your coffee, without having a dependence on it. This can be done by slowly whining yourself off and then sprinkling in days where you don’t drink coffee. A bonus perk is you save money and get more bang for your buck when it comes to consuming caffeine in the future.

Stretch

This one converts to all other areas of your life as well! Similar to exercise stretching helps reduce stress levels and gives you a much-needed break from your day. Also, if you are a sufferer of tension headaches then this is going to reduce tension throughout your body and decrease the frequency of your headaches. Typically, people carry a lot of tension in their posterior chain (Back, hamstrings, neck, shoulders) that in turn can lead to tension headaches. I highly recommend stretching a couple times a week and see how you feel.

Ease into your morning

This one can be tough for a lot of parents out there, but we have a choice. Do we let the events of the day dictate our mood or do we prepare for the day and crush it! A lot of times this means waking up earlier, so that we have the opportunity to go through our morning ritual, set our must accomplish tasks for the day and enjoy some peace and preparation before the craziness of the day begins. The result is less stress and a greater feeling of accomplishment through the day.

Limiting blue light exposure

If you are someone who spends all day on your computer, then this is an easy no brainer option. I will start by saying that you have many options when it comes to limiting your blue light exposure. The first option I recommend is changing your computers display settings to dark mode. This is a free and easy way to reduce your blue light exposure. Second if you want a new pair of glasses there are plenty of blue light blockers on the market for you to choose from. I personally have a pair that I break out when my eyes start to feel strained from long bouts of screen time.