Exercising for just two and a half hours a week can reduce your risk of migraine, a new study suggests.
Researchers at a headache clinic at the University of Washington looked into the amount of exercise performed each week by patients diagnosed with migraine.
They found exercise above the two-and-a-half hour threshold – the lowest recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) – reduced migraine triggers such as anxiety and poor quality sleep.
In their sample of more than 4,500 adults with migraine, 73 percent experienced less than two and a half hours a week, they found.
Migraine is a common health condition, affecting about one in five women and about one in 15 men, according to the NHS.
Regular exercise may be an effective way to reduce the frequency and severity of migraine, which can cause severe, severe and excruciating pain.
‘Migraine is a debilitating condition that affects millions of people in the U.S. but regular exercise may be an effective way to reduce frequency and intensity,’ said study author Dr. Mason Dyess of the University of Washington in Seattle.
Exercise releases natural pain called endorphins, helping people sleep better and reducing weight.
‘But if people with migraine don’t exercise, they may not benefit from it.’
When most of us hear the word ‘migraine’, we tend to think of a real headache.
One UK sufferer described migraine as a ‘severe, severe pain that is so intense that you would do nothing to stop it.
But headaches are just one symptom of migraines, and they can range in depth and duration, according to another expert.
‘Migraines are a neurological disease that involves zero pathways and chemicals,’ said Brandeis Brockman, a nurse practitioner at Delancey Internal Medicine in the US, who was not involved in this study.
According to Dr. Dyess, headache is a sciatic term that includes migraines.
Dr Dyess and his team looked specifically at three causes or ‘triggers’ of migraine listed on the NHS website – mental disorders, anxiety and sleep.
The study included 4,647 people, all of whom were diagnosed with migraine, but with varying degrees of anxiety.
About three-quarters of them experienced ‘chronic’ migraine, meaning they had 15 or more migraines per month. The others had an ‘episodic’ migraine – up to 14 a month.
Participants completed a questionnaire about their migraine symptoms, sleep, depression, stress, anxiety and the amount of ‘moderate to strong’ exercise they received each week.
Types of exercise that qualified as ‘moderate to vigorous’ included movement, brisk walking, playing sports, cycling and even ‘heavy cleaning’.
Researchers divided participants into five groups based on moderate to strong weekly exercise rate – zero minutes, one to 30 minutes, 31 to 90 minutes, 91 minutes to two and a half hours, and more than two hours to half an hour and a half.
They found that 1,270 people (27 percent) of the people in the study reported receiving the highest level of exercise (more than two and a half hours a week).
In addition, people who received less than two and a half hours of moderate to vigorous exercise each week had elevated levels of all three causes – depression, anxiety, and sleep problems.
Depression was reported by 47 percent of people in the group who did not exercise, or 377 of 806 people, compared with 25 percent of people in the group who did the majority, or 318 of 1,270 people.
In addition, anxiety was reported by 39 percent of people in the no exercise group compared to 28 percent of those in the high exercise group.
Finally, sleep problems were reported by 77 percent of people in the no exercise group compared to 61 percent in the high exercise group.
People who received less than two and a half hours of moderate to vigorous exercise each week had elevated levels of all three causes – depression, anxiety and sleep problems (stock image)
‘Our analysis suggests that a lower level of exercise than the WHO recommended is associated with a lower level of depression, anxiety and sleep problems,’ the experts report.
Researchers also found a link between exercise and the risk of migraines or another type of headache.
Of those in the group without exercise, 5 percent had a low headache frequency, defined as zero to four days headache per month, and 48 percent had a high headache frequency, defined as 25 days or more headaches per month.
Of those in the high exercise group who did more than two and a half hours a week, 10 percent had a low headache frequency and 28 percent had a high headache frequency.
While there are some medications for migraines, including some types of sleep deprivation, exercise is probably the cheapest treatment.
‘New medications are available for migraine, but they are very expensive,’ said Dr. Dyess, who will be presenting his findings at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, which is held almost from April 17 to 22.
‘People with migraine should consider incorporating more exercise into their daily life as it may be a safe and low-cost way to manage and reduce some of the other problems associated with migraine. ‘
According to the NHS, physical movements such as poor posture, and strenuous exercise if you are unfamiliar with it, can also cause total.
Dietary stimulants include lost, delayed or irregular foods, lack of water, alcohol, caffeine and foods containing the tyramine substance.
Tyramine is found in cured meats, yeast extracts, pickled herring, smoked fish and specialty cheeses such as cheddar, stilton and camembert.