Headaches And Migraine: What Mr Iyengar, The Yoga Doctors And The Research Say

A tight band round your head by mid-afternoon? A dull ache at the back of the skull after a long day at the screen? Or a throbbing migraine that wipes out a whole day? Headaches are one of the most common reasons people come to yoga. The great yoga teachers and the medical doctors who worked with Mr BKS Iyengar all have something to say about headaches and migraine, and so does a growing body of research. This guide brings it all together, in plain words, so you can see what helps and where to start. Last updated: 4 November 2026.

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Does yoga help headaches? The short answer

Yes. Yoga for headaches has good support, and it is clearest for the common tension headache. A 2020 review of yoga trials found fewer headaches, shorter headaches and less pain, with the benefit mainly in tension-type headache, the tight-neck, tight-band kind. For migraine, newer trials have filled the gap: in a 2020 trial published in the journal Neurology, people who added three months of yoga to their usual migraine medicine had fewer, milder migraines and needed fewer pills than people on medicine alone. A 2024 review of 28 exercise studies found yoga was the only kind of exercise that beat medicine alone for how strong migraines were. Slow breathing (pranayama) and mindfulness trials point the same way.

Mr Iyengar’s own approach to headache and migraine is quiet and calm: the head supported, the eyes rested and the head kept cool. Most trials tested “yoga” of many styles, taught by teachers with very different training. In our view as certified Iyengar teachers, well-taught Iyengar yoga, with its close attention to the neck, jaw, eyes and breath, is likely to go further than the average. Why the kind of yoga matters.

The bottom line: five key moves for headaches and migraine

1. Go to a yoga class at your level, several times a week, for at least 12 weeks. Almost every trial that found fewer headaches ran for about three months. This is steady work between headaches, not a quick trick on the day.
2. Add slow breathing (pranayama). In trials, slow pranayama and alternate nostril breathing went with fewer headache days. Keep it smooth and easy, never forced or held.
3. Unclench, many times a day. Jaw, tongue, eyes, forehead, neck and the tops of the shoulders. This is where the tension behind a stress headache hides, and where yoga teaches you to let go.
4. When a headache is coming, rest the head. Head supported, eyes covered, lying down, cool and quiet. Leave upside-down poses and strong breathing for another day.
5. Start now. New to Flametree, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price, in Darwin or LIVE online.

Iyengar yoga is the style we teach at Flametree. During the 20th century, Mr BKS Iyengar was the major person who codified traditional Indian yoga, through his seminal books and widespread teaching. He also pioneered the use of props, so poses can be adapted to almost any body. His style is sometimes called modern classical yoga. This guide is part of our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.

This guide in short

• Mr BKS Iyengar: three separate approaches, for headache and eye strain, stress-related headache and migraine. All three support the head, rest the eyes and keep the head cool.
• Geeta S Iyengar: headaches around periods and menopause, deep breathing for headache and migraine, and different practice for different kinds of headache.
• Dr Timothy McCall: migraine and tension headaches are on his list of conditions helped by yoga, and his book links them with anxiety and tight muscles.
• Dr Krishna Raman: a headache in class is a sign of held breath and a tight neck, and forward bends help most people with migraine.
• Other voices: pain is the brain’s alarm, and calm turns it down.
• The research: 19 studies listed below, on tension headache, migraine, pranayama and mindfulness, including an Iyengar yoga study.
• Take it further: a free ebook on stress, our 2027 masterclass on calming the mind, and classes in Darwin and online.

“Do not clench your teeth or you will also be “clenching” your brain.”

Tension headache, migraine and headache from the neck: what are they?

In short: most headaches are tension-type headaches. Migraine is a different kind of headache, and many people have both.

• Tension headache (tension-type headache). A dull, pressing ache, often like a tight band, at the forehead, the temples or the back of the head. Mr Iyengar describes it as a dull ache at the back of the skull from tight scalp and neck muscles, or a dull throb after a stressful event. This is the common stress headache. Our tension headache guide goes deeper on it.
• Migraine. A throbbing headache that comes and goes in attacks, often with feeling sick or being sick. In Mr Iyengar’s words (in our summary), the pain can be at the front, back or sides, and is sometimes warned of by sensitivity to light, partial loss of sight or numb lips.
• Headache from the neck. A stiff, sore neck and a headache often travel together. Mr Iyengar lists headaches among the signs of neck wear and tear (cervical spondylosis) in the same book. See our yoga for neck pain page for the Iyengar neck trials.
• Eye strain headache. Long hours at a screen, squinting and a hard, unblinking stare tire the eyes and tighten the forehead. Mr Iyengar’s first headache entry is “headache and eye strain”, and the theme of his approach is resting the eyes and cooling the head.

“If standing asanas stimulate, the forward extension asanas pacify the brain.”

What Mr BKS Iyengar taught about headaches

In short: three separate approaches, one for each kind of headache, and all of them calm: the head supported, the eyes rested, the head kept cool.

In Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, Mr Iyengar sets out a yoga approach for 72 health conditions. Headaches get three entries of their own, in our words:

• Headache and eye strain (p. 351). He describes sharp pain around the eyes and temples that builds quickly and can last up to about two hours. His approach is built around forward bends with the head supported and other calming poses, with gentle breathing. Cooling the head and resting the eyes is the theme.
• Stress-related headache (p. 353). The dull ache at the back of the skull from tight scalp and neck muscles. A short, quiet course of head-supported forward bends and lying poses.
• Migraine (p. 355). A calm, head-supported practice, with forward bends, supported inversions (upside-down poses with props) and breathing practice, including ocean breath (Ujjayi) and staircase breath (Viloma).

We do not publish his sequences. A sequence for headaches needs a teacher who can see you, see your neck and your breath, and adapt it, which is what a class is for. The three approaches agree with each other, and that is the message to take away: when the head hurts, support it, cool it and quieten it.

In Light on Life, in an appendix on poses for emotional stability, he also names three supported poses he found very good for people with migraine: a shoulder stand variation, a bridge pose over a bench, and the legs-up-the-wall pose (Viparita Karani). This is his claim, from long teaching experience, and these are poses your teacher will bring in when they suit you.

Neighbouring entries in the same book show how often headache travels with other problems. He lists headache as a feature of neck wear and tear (cervical spondylosis, p. 326), of blocked sinuses (sinusitis, p. 279) and of anxiety (p. 365).

Decades earlier, in the appendix to Light on Yoga, Mr Iyengar lists headache (p. 424) and migraine (p. 429) among the complaints he gives groups of poses for. Both lean on supported inversions, forward bends and a long rest, with breathing done without holding the breath. For migraine he adds a cooling breath, closing the eyes and ears with the fingers (Sanmukhi mudra) and quiet seated meditation. The same calm, cooling theme runs through both books.

“Do not try to touch the head to the knee by caving in the chest.”

Geeta S Iyengar on headaches, periods and menopause

In short: headaches often come with the hormone changes of a woman’s life, deep quiet breathing helps, and different kinds of headache need different practice.

Geeta S Iyengar, Mr Iyengar’s daughter and one of the great teachers of the method, wrote Yoga: A Gem for Women. Migraine is far more common in women than in men, so her view matters here. In our words:

• Around periods. She describes pre-menstrual tension as including headache, tight nerves, sore breasts, temper and heaviness (pp. 50 to 52).
• Around menopause. She lists headaches among the changes between about 40 and 50, with hot flushes, poor sleep and mood changes, and says yoga poses calm the nerves (pp. 56 to 57, her claim). Our menopause guide has more.
• A cool head. She gives hints on poses that soothe the nerves, and on keeping the head cool with forward bends and Downward Dog (pp. 93 to 94).
• Deep breathing. She lists her first stage of deep breathing for nervous tension, headache, migraine, hot flushes and high blood pressure (p. 313, her claim).
• Breathing done badly. She also passes on an old warning from the yoga texts: breathing practice done wrongly can bring on head pain, among other troubles (p. 308). That is why pranayama is taught slowly, by a teacher.

Notes from Geeta Iyengar’s teaching in Australia in 1996, gathered by teachers in Iyengar Yoga Remedial Sequences, go further. They set out separate practice for a headache from a cold or blocked sinuses, for an acute migraine, for a tension headache, for a headache from indigestion and for a general headache. For a headache of unknown cause, the advice is to play it safe, with head-supported forward bends and rest. Forward bends come first, and inversions are added only if the headache eases. With a severe headache, head-down poses can make it worse, so the work is lying down and resting. Again, we do not publish the sequences: your teacher adapts them to you on the day.

Iyengar yoga for migraine: Geeta Iyengar and four Pune doctors, 1988

In December 1988, as part of Mr Iyengar’s 70th birthday celebrations in Pune, Geeta S Iyengar sat on a panel with four of Pune’s leading physicians for an evening symposium on headache. The Australian Iyengar journal Yoga Vaani printed a transcript, abridged by Kay Parry, in 1989 and again in 1995. What it adds, in our words:

• A symptom, not a disease. The physicians on the panel described most headaches as a symptom rather than an illness in themselves, and migraine as a disturbance of the automatic (involuntary) nervous system, often set off by tension, anxiety or low mood. Anger and strong feelings, like hot weather, change how wide the blood vessels of the head stay open. Geeta’s answer was the forward bend with the forehead resting: with the heart below the spine, she said, the rush of blood to the head eases. Her claim, from practice.
• No fixed prescription. “You cannot give a prescription of asanas,” she said, because migraine pain sits in a different place for each person. The teacher has to find where it is, then begin: sometimes with head-supported forward bends, sometimes with legs up the wall. If a pose leaves the head heavier, it is not the pose for today.
• Space at the back of the neck. She described lengthening the neck away from the skull, and fine-tuning the blankets under the head, because a tight, jammed base of the skull can hold the pain. A wrap over the eyes helps some people and not others, so the teacher keeps looking.
• Calm cannot be ordered. Telling someone to be calm does not stop a headache, she said. The calm has to come from inside, through poses and quiet breathing such as staircase breath (Viloma) and closing the eyes and ears with the fingers (Sanmukhi mudra), learnt with a teacher.
• Practice done wrongly can bring headaches on. One of the panel, Dr Karandikar, told how his headaches began when he taught himself a practice from a book, and eased once he practised at the Iyengar institute in Pune.

Source: “What is a Headache?”, transcribed and abridged by Kay Parry from the Headache symposium of 12 December 1988 in Pune, Yoga Vaani 17, Winter 1989, pp. 22 to 31 (see the issue), reprinted in Yoga Vaani 41, September 1995, pp. 16 to 24 (see the issue), in the Iyengar Yoga Australia members’ e-library. Known from long practice: research has not yet tested Geeta’s approach as she taught it. Our post Iyengar Yoga For Migraine goes further, and in our classes in Darwin and online this is how a teacher works with a headache on the day.

“The squint and the puckered forehead are always signs of mental tension.”

What Dr Timothy McCall says about headaches

In short: migraine and tension headaches are on his list of conditions helped by yoga, and his book ties them to anxiety and tight muscles, the two things yoga works on most.

Dr Timothy McCall is a US medical doctor and yoga therapist, author of Yoga as Medicine and former medical editor of Yoga Journal. His June 2019 list of conditions helped by yoga, as shown in scientific studies, includes migraine and tension headaches (no. 58), and his book gives headaches a chapter of its own (chapter 18). These are his points, in our words:

• Stress drives both kinds. In his headaches chapter he says stress is a strong driver of tension headache and migraine, so almost any calming yoga, even simple breathing, can help, and regular practice can change how you react to stress. As body awareness grows, he says, people notice habits such as screwing up the eyes or cradling a phone, and the early signs of a coming migraine, when it is easier to act.
• An Iyengar-trained teacher at work. The chapter’s teacher is Rodney Yee, an Iyengar-trained teacher in California. His student, a hard-driving magazine editor with migraines that could last three days, did only vigorous classes and almost no restorative poses. He had her soften an intense, hard gaze, ground her legs, and work mostly in supported restorative poses with a head wrap over the eyes. Dr McCall reports that her migraines fell from three or four a month to one or two.
• The trials he cites. In a small randomised trial in Madras (Latha and Kaliappan), twenty people with tension or migraine headaches did gentle poses and breathing for four months; only the yoga group had fewer, shorter and milder headaches and used less pain medication. A larger Indian study (Prabhakar and colleagues) compared yoga with drug therapy for chronic tension headache: both groups improved over a year, the yoga group more, with less anxiety and low mood as well.
• His cautions, in our words. During a severe migraine he advises against an active practice: lie down somewhere dark and quiet and keep to gentle restorative poses. For some people with migraine, inversions can bring on symptoms, so supported versions such as a chair shoulder stand come first. And if the mind keeps circling a worry in restorative poses, a more active practice first can help it settle.
• Anxiety and migraine go together. In his chapter on anxiety, he lists migraines among the things anxiety can spiral into, along with poor sleep, gut trouble and palpitations. Calm the anxiety and you work on the headache too.
• An Iyengar study he reports. In the same chapter he describes a German study of three months of Iyengar yoga classes for distressed women: stress, anxiety and mood improved, and those with headaches reported marked pain relief. That study is listed in our research section below.
• Tight muscles, morning headaches. In his sleep chapter, the yoga teacher Judith Hanson Lasater explains that tense muscles can mean waking with a headache or a clenched jaw, and that yoga poses reduce muscle tension.
• Headaches around menopause. In his menopause chapter, the senior Iyengar teacher Elise Browning Miller, whose student first came to yoga for migraine headaches, recommends a supported half plough pose, with a chair, for hot flushes and headaches, as long as the headache is not too severe.
• The head wrap. In his high blood pressure chapter, the Iyengar-trained teacher Aadil Palkhivala uses a soft bandage wrapped over the eyes to turn attention inward for tense, “jittery” students. It is much like the Iyengar head wrap Chris has used for decades: see how to do it.
• Tailored beats standard. In an article on research and practice, McCall uses migraine as one of his examples when he argues that research has to give everyone the same sequence, while good yoga therapy is tailored to the person. He notes that Mr Iyengar never used “canned” sequences. In other words, the trials below test a simpler version of yoga than a good teacher gives you.

What Dr Krishna Raman says about headaches

In short: a headache during practice is a sign of held breath and a tight head and neck, and forward bends help most people with migraine.

Dr Krishna Raman is a medical doctor in Chennai who trained in yoga under Mr Iyengar. In Yoga and Medical Science: FAQ (with Dr S. Suresh) he answers hundreds of questions. On headaches, his claims, in our words:

• Held breath brings headaches. Holding the breath in poses can cause headache, a racing heart and dizziness (question 125).
• A tight neck in standing poses. Headaches and neck pain in standing poses come from a restrained breath and a tight head and neck. Keep the muscles across the top of the shoulders soft (questions 127 and 128).
• Forward bends and twists done tightly. A heavy head after forward bends comes from a tight breath, belly, neck and tongue; a headache after twists comes from held breath and tension (questions 153 to 157 and 168 to 175).
• Order matters. In his view, the order of the inversions matters, and getting it wrong can bring on a bad headache. This is one reason inversions are learnt with a teacher (question 198).
• What helps most. Forward bends help most people with migraine; back bends help a minority (question 222). He finds a half plough pose with the legs resting on a stool very restful for the eyes, and helpful for chronic migraine and tension headaches with eye pain, and calls forward bends very beneficial for chronic headaches with an eye component.
• One breath to leave out. He rules out the strong belly lift after the out-breath (Uddiyana) for now in people with migraine (question 121).

“If retention causes tension or pain in the head, you are holding from the brain.”

Other yoga voices

In short: long-lasting pain is the brain’s alarm, and calm, safe movement turns the alarm down.

• Mary Flaherty, Does Yoga Work? In her chapter on pain, she explains that long-lasting pain is the brain’s alarm system. Fear, poor sleep, stiffness, poor breathing, anxiety and always being on watch turn it up; safe movement turns it down. The pain is real, not imagined. This fits the tension headache well. She names the review of yoga for headaches (Anheyer, listed below) among the pain reviews (pp. 49 to 53).
• Practise with a teacher. In a German survey of 1,702 people that she reports, injuries in yoga were rare, about 0.6 per 1,000 hours, and practising alone without a teacher carried more risk (pp. 193 to 197). That is a good reason to learn the stronger poses, such as headstand and shoulder stand, in a class.

“Maintaining the cool sensation in the brain is precision in pranayama.”

What does the research say about yoga for headaches?

In short: yoga cuts how often tension headaches come, how long they last and how much they hurt. For migraine, yoga added to usual care gives fewer, milder attacks, and slow breathing and mindfulness help too. Most of these studies tested yoga in general, of many styles, and most ran for about three months. Why the difference between yoga and Iyengar yoga matters.

Tension headache

• Yoga reduced how often headaches came, how long they lasted and how much they hurt. The benefit came mainly from people with tension-type headache. For migraine on its own, this review found no clear effect; the newer migraine trials below fill that gap. Anheyer 2020, a review and meta-analysis of randomised trials (5 trials for headache frequency), by German and Australian researchers. The authors call it early, short-term evidence. Read the study.

No trial has yet tested yoga on its own for headache from the neck or for eye strain headache. Not yet studied is not the same as not working. The Iyengar yoga trials for neck pain are on our yoga for neck pain page.

Migraine: reviews and a guideline

• Yoga did better than medicine alone for how often migraines came, and it was the only exercise that also beat medicine alone for how strong they were. Reina-Varona 2024, a network review of 28 studies and 1,501 people, comparing many kinds of exercise. Read the study.
• An expert panel gave yoga a grade B recommendation for migraine symptoms, disability and quality of life, alongside aerobic exercise. La Touche 2023, an evidence-based clinical practice guideline on exercise for migraine. Read the study.
• Yoga as a regular add-on between attacks went with fewer headaches and less disability, and probably less pain and more confidence in managing migraine. Begasse de Dhaem 2024, a review of studies from 2018 to 2023, which also gave yoga a grade B recommendation. Read the study.
• Yoga went with less pain, fewer and shorter migraines, and better scores on two standard headache-impact questionnaires (HIT-6 and MIDAS). Long 2022, a meta-analysis of 6 randomised trials. A second review the same year (Wu 2022, 5 trials, 356 people) found the same fall in headache frequency; the two share most of their trials, so we count them as one body of evidence, not two. Read the study.
• Yoga reduced migraine, and the best results came with about 8 to 10 weeks of practice. Xie 2025, a network and dose review of 27 trials and 1,611 people. Combined aerobic and strength exercise ranked first; yoga and tai chi also helped. Read the study.

Those comparisons with exercise tested yoga in general. Iyengar yoga, with its standing poses for strength and its supported inversions, has not yet been tested against exercise on its own. Why that matters.

Migraine: trials of yoga added to usual care

• Yoga added to migraine medicine gave fewer migraines (about 3.5 fewer a month than medicine alone), milder migraines, less disability and fewer pills. Kumar 2020, the CONTAIN trial, 160 adults with episodic migraine in New Delhi, 3 months, published in Neurology. Assessors did not know who did yoga. Read the study.
• Yoga or physical therapy added to usual care cut migraine frequency and severity more than usual care alone. Mehta 2020, a trial of 61 people with migraine over 3 months, practising at home with phone reminders. Read the study.
• Yoga added to usual care gave a bigger fall in pain scores and better heart rate variability, a sign of a calmer nervous system. Kumari 2022, a small trial of 12 weeks of yoga, 5 days a week. Read the study.

In these trials, yoga was added to medicine, not used instead of it. Always follow the directions of any doctor you are consulting.

Iyengar yoga studies

• After three months of Iyengar yoga, distressed women had less stress, anxiety, fatigue and low mood, and those with headaches reported marked pain relief. Cortisol, the stress hormone, fell after a class. Michalsen 2005, a controlled study of 24 women in Germany, with a waiting-list comparison group. Dr McCall reports it in Yoga as Medicine. Read the study.

This study tested Iyengar yoga: two 90-minute Iyengar classes a week. No trial has yet tested Iyengar yoga for headache or migraine as its main aim. Not yet studied is not the same as not working.

Breathing practice (pranayama)

• Daily slow pranayama and relaxation cut headache days by about 7 a month, against about 5 with usual care alone, with bigger falls in pain and disability and a calmer nervous system balance. No side effects were reported. Sujan 2025, a trial of 90 adults with chronic migraine, 12 weeks, added to usual care. Read the study.
• Twelve weeks of pranayama improved heart rate variability (a measure of how calm the automatic nervous system is) and clinical scores more than usual care, and raised the calming vagal tone. Laxmi 2025, a trial of 86 people recently diagnosed with migraine. Read the study.
• Alternate nostril breathing three times a day cut how often migraine attacks came and how much they disabled people, more than usual care. Come 2025, a trial of 86 people with migraine in Turkey over 3 months. Read the study.

“Breathwork” covers many different things, so it pays to look at what was actually taught. The pranayama we teach (staircase, ocean, alternate nostril and humming breath) is slow, nasal and taught step by step, for calm. Alternate nostril breathing (Nadi Sodhana) is one of the five we teach. We do not teach forceful or held breathing to people with headaches. Why the kind of breathing matters.

Meditation and mindfulness

• Mindfulness gave small falls in migraine pain and in how often attacks came, and less anxiety, low mood and dread of the next attack. Liao 2025, a review of 14 trials and 1,027 people. Read the study.
• Mindfulness programmes reduced headache pain. Reangsing 2025, a review of 10 studies and 330 people with migraine. Read the study.
• Relaxation training and mindfulness may each reduce how often migraine attacks come, and mindfulness may reduce disability more than education. Treadwell 2025, a review of 50 trials and 6,024 adults of behavioural approaches to migraine. Read the study.
• A mindfulness programme that includes gentle yoga improved disability, quality of life, confidence, mood and dread of pain, with gains lasting to 36 weeks. Wells 2021, a trial of 89 adults with migraine, against headache education. Migraine days fell in both groups. Read the study.
• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy gave fewer headaches and less stress, anxiety and rumination. Simshauser 2022, a trial of 54 people with migraine, against a waiting list. Read the study.

In one of these, migraine days fell just as much with headache education as with the mindfulness course. That course was a general mindfulness programme, not pranayama or Iyengar yoga, so it is worth asking what exactly was taught before concluding anything. In our view, the yoga room trains the same attention, and adds the poses and the breath.

“Relax the eyes, the ears, and the tongue. Keep the jaws loose.”

How this comes together in a Flametree class

Everything above points the same way, and it is how we teach yoga for headaches in Darwin and online.

• A strong back and an open chest: standing poses lift the chest and free the neck, the opposite of the screen slump that feeds so many tension headaches.
• Head supported forward bends: the head rests on a bolster, block or chair, so the eyes and forehead can let go. This is Mr Iyengar’s theme for all three kinds of headache.
• Soft face, soft jaw, soft breath: you will hear these cues again and again. They are where a stress headache lives.
• Calming pranayama: slow, smooth breathing, in class and in our pranayama classes.
• Rest, every class: every class ends in relaxation, and our restorative yoga classes are where the head wrap is sometimes taught.
• Classes adapted to the people in them. No one-size-fits-all. Tell your teacher if you get headaches or migraines, and we will adapt the inversions and the breathing for you.

Read more on headaches, the neck and the breath

• Dizzy, or the room spinning? Vertigo exercises and yoga, including vestibular migraine, the migraine that shows up as dizziness.
• Tension headache: causes, symptoms and what Iyengar yoga does
• Iyengar yoga for migraine: Chris’s head wrap, and how to practise safely
• Yoga for neck pain: what the Iyengar trials found
• Stiff neck? Why it keeps coming back
• Tech neck: the head-down habit of phones and screens
• Savasana: how to relax properly at the end of class
• Bhramari pranayama: the humming breath
• Cyclic sighing: the long out-breath
• Yoga inversions: benefits, beginner poses and who should take care
• Headstand: how to learn it safely with a wall and a teacher
• Related guides: neck pain and yoga, yoga for stress and burnout, yoga and anxiety, yoga for sleep and energy and menopause and perimenopause

Take it further

• Classes, in Darwin or LIVE online: new, or away 3 months or more? 2 free classes, then 10 at half price. Already practising yoga? See the non-beginner half price pass. See every class time.
• Masterclass: a tight jaw, a hard upper back and a held breath are where upset lives, and where many headaches start. Our 2027 Sunday Arvo Masterclass Yoga For Anxiety, Upsets And Anger (18 April) with Chris Lalor, Certified Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher and certified Yoga Therapist, teaches head-supported forward bends and calming breath. Come for the poses, the sequences and the pranayama that put this into action.
• Retreats: a week of daily yoga and pranayama in Bali, away from screens and deadlines. See the retreats.

Other conditions are in our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.

Headaches, tension headache and migraine: questions people ask

What is the difference between a tension headache and a migraine?

A tension headache is a dull, pressing ache, often like a tight band, that Mr Iyengar describes as coming from tight scalp and neck muscles or after a stressful event. A migraine is a throbbing headache that comes in attacks, often with nausea, and is sometimes warned of by light sensitivity or changes in sight. Many people have both. Yoga reviews show the clearest benefit for tension headache, and trials of yoga added to usual care show fewer, milder migraines.

Can neck pain cause a headache, and what helps that kind?

Yes, neck pain and headache often travel together, and Mr Iyengar lists headaches among the signs of neck wear and tear. Dr Krishna Raman says headaches in standing poses come from a held breath and a tight head and neck. Yoga works on both: standing poses lift the chest and free the neck, and you learn to keep the tops of the shoulders soft. Our neck pain page has the Iyengar neck trials.

Does slow breathing help headaches?

Trials say yes. Daily slow pranayama cut headache days by about 7 a month in people with chronic migraine, and alternate nostril breathing three times a day cut how often attacks came. Keep the breath smooth and easy. Mr Iyengar and Dr Raman both warn that holding or forcing the breath can bring a headache on, which is why pranayama is taught slowly, by a teacher.

Does meditation or mindfulness help migraine?

It helps. Reviews of mindfulness found small falls in migraine pain and in how often attacks came, and clearer gains in coping, mood, disability and dread of the next attack. In yoga, the attention you bring to every pose and breath is the same skill, with the body and the breath added.

How long does yoga take to help headaches?

Give it about three months. Nearly every trial that found fewer headaches or migraines ran for 8 to 12 weeks, and one review found the best results with 8 to 10 weeks of practice. Come to class several times a week, and keep going between headaches, not only on bad days.

Why does my head ache during or after a yoga class?

Usually from held breath or a tight neck, jaw or tongue. Dr Krishna Raman links headaches in class to holding the breath, a tight neck in standing poses and gripping in forward bends and twists, and Geeta Iyengar warns that caving the chest to reach forward stiffens the neck. Soften the face, keep the breath moving and tell your teacher, who can adapt the poses for you.

Can eye strain from screens cause a headache, and what does yoga do for tired eyes?

Many people find long screen hours bring on an eye strain headache, with a tight forehead and a hard, unblinking stare. Mr Iyengar’s first headache entry is headache and eye strain, and its theme is resting the eyes and cooling the head, with head-supported forward bends. No trial has yet tested yoga for eye strain headache; this is known from long practice.

Does Darwin’s heat make headaches worse, and how should I practise in the build-up?

Many of our students tell us heat and not drinking enough make headaches more likely in the build-up and the Wet. No study has looked at Darwin’s weather and headaches. In class, drink water before you come, take the cooler, quieter options and rest with the head supported if a headache starts. Flametree teaches Iyengar yoga in Darwin and LIVE online, and new students get 2 free classes, then 10 at half price.

Where this comes from: BKS Iyengar, Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health (Dorling Kindersley), headache and eye strain p. 351, stress-related headache p. 353, migraine p. 355, and related entries pp. 279, 326 and 365; Light on Yoga, appendix (pp. 424 and 429); Light on Life, including its appendix on poses for emotional stability; Iyengar: His Life and Work; Astadala Yogamala. Geeta S Iyengar, Yoga: A Gem for Women, pp. 50 to 57, 93 to 94, 308 and 313, and notes from her 1996 teaching in Australia in Iyengar Yoga Remedial Sequences. BKS Iyengar and Geeta S Iyengar, Basic Guidelines for Teachers of Yoga. Timothy McCall MD, Yoga as Medicine (chapters on headaches, anxiety, insomnia, menopause and high blood pressure), his June 2019 list of health conditions helped by yoga, and his article “Yoga Therapy Research vs. Yoga Therapy in Practice”. Krishna Raman MD and S. Suresh MD, Yoga and Medical Science: FAQ, questions 121 to 128, 153 to 175, 198, 199 and 222. Mary Flaherty, Does Yoga Work?, pp. 49 to 53 and 193 to 197. Studies as linked above. Everything else is summarised in our own words.

This page is general information, not medical advice. Flametree Yoga Studio, Darwin and LIVE online.