Migraine Triggers: Why Stress Tops The List, And How Yoga Steadies The System

Is it the late night, the skipped lunch, or the week from hell at work? Most people with migraine can name at least one thing that sets an attack off. The harder question is what to do about it, apart from living very carefully.

Migraine triggers and yoga: the short answer

The most common migraine triggers are stress, missed meals, poor sleep and the weather. Stress tops almost every list. You cannot remove stress from a life, but you can change how the body and brain react to it, and that is where yoga for migraine does its work. In a large trial, people who added yoga to their usual migraine care had about three and a half fewer migraines a month than those on care alone. This post looks at the triggers, and at how regular practice in Darwin or in online yoga classes across Australia steadies the system they act on.

Here is the article in short form:

• Stress is the trigger most people name. About 8 in 10 in one large study.
• Many triggers act on one system: the automatic nervous system.
• Yoga added to usual care gave fewer, milder migraines.
• Mindfulness with gentle yoga eased disability and dread.
• The Iyengar way: calm, supported poses and slow breathing.
• Notice the early signs, and act sooner.
• Start with 2 free classes, in Darwin or LIVE online.

Iyengar yoga is the style developed by Mr BKS Iyengar. In the 20th century he did more than anyone to set down traditional Indian yoga, through his books and his teaching, and he pioneered the use of props. It’s the style we teach at Flametree. This post sits beside our full headaches and migraine guide and the deeper page on migraine relief: what Geeta Iyengar advised, both part of our encyclopaedia of yoga for health conditions.

Calm first: Chris getting ready for a supported forward bend

What are the most common migraine triggers?

In short: stress, not eating, the weather and sleep, in that order, in one of the largest studies.

A US headache clinic asked 1,207 people with migraine what set off their attacks. About three in four (75.9%) named at least one trigger. According to PubMed, the most common were:

• Stress: 79.7%
• Not eating: 57.3%
• Weather: 53.2%
• Sleep disturbance: 49.8%
• Smells and perfume: 43.7%
• Neck pain: 38.4%
• Lights: 38.1%

Kelman, 2007, published in the journal Cephalalgia. Read the study (PMID 17403039). The study also found that people with triggers tended to have more severe attacks.

Look at that list again. Most of these common migraine triggers are not things you can switch off. Weather arrives. Work gets busy. A baby wakes at 3am. So the useful question is not only how to dodge triggers. It is how to make the system less jumpy when they arrive.

Why does stress set off a migraine?

In short: migraine is tied to the automatic nervous system, and stress is what that system is built to react to.

The automatic (autonomic) nervous system runs your heart rate, gut and stress response without you choosing. Geeta S Iyengar, Mr Iyengar’s daughter and one of the great teachers of his method, tied migraine to this system when she answered questions at the Iyengar Yoga Australia retreat in 2009. That is why she warned against hard muscular effort during an attack. Her full advice for the day itself is on our migraine relief page.

Dr Timothy McCall, an American medical doctor and yoga therapist who studied with Mr BKS Iyengar, author of Yoga as Medicine, says the same thing from the medical side. In his headaches chapter he calls stress a strong driver of both migraine and tension headache. So almost any calming yoga can help, and regular practice can change how you react to stress over time.

For some people, a stress migraine arrives not at the height of the pressure, but after it, on the first day off. That pattern is one reason we think of yoga for migraine as steady training between attacks, not a quick trick on the day.

Can yoga change how often migraines come?

In short: yes. In the best trial so far, yoga added to usual care cut migraine days and pills. According to PubMed:

• Yoga added to migraine medicine gave about 3.5 fewer headaches a month than medicine alone, milder attacks, less disability and fewer pills. Kumar and colleagues, 2020, the CONTAIN trial in Neurology: 160 adults with episodic migraine in New Delhi, 3 months of yoga, results scored by assessors who did not know who did yoga. Read the study (PMID 32376640).
• An 8-week mindfulness course that includes gentle yoga improved disability, quality of life, confidence, mood and how much people dreaded pain, with gains lasting to 36 weeks. Wells and colleagues, 2021, JAMA Internal Medicine, 89 adults. Migraine days fell in both this group and a headache education group. Read the study (PMID 33315046).

Our headaches and migraine guide lists 19 studies in full, including the pranayama (breathing) trials. Most of these trials tested yoga of many styles. No trial has yet tested Iyengar yoga for migraine as its main aim. Not yet studied is not the same as not working.

Rest is part of every class

What do the yoga doctors say about migraine triggers?

In short: calm the brain and nerves, and learn to read the early signs.

Dr J. T. Shah, a medical doctor who was also an Iyengar yoga teacher, who worked closely with Mr BKS Iyengar for many years, groups migraine with insomnia and poor concentration and memory, as conditions of the brain and nerves, in his book Therapeutic Yoga (p. xix). For that group he lists upside-down poses, stress-reducing poses, Corpse Pose (Savasana) and alternate nostril breathing (Nadi Shodhana). He also lists who should avoid upside-down poses, including people with high blood pressure, glaucoma or neck arthritis (p. xiii). So those poses are learnt with a teacher, between attacks.

Mr BKS Iyengar’s own approach to migraine, in Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health (p. 355), is calm and head-supported: forward bends, supported upside-down poses and quiet breathing. Dr McCall adds a point that matters most for triggers. As body awareness grows, people start to notice their own habits, like screwing up the eyes, and the early signs of a coming migraine. That is when it is easiest to act.

Which migraine triggers can yoga practice help with?

In short: the ones that run through the nervous system and the body, which is most of them.

• Stress. Slow breathing and long rests teach the body to come down from high alert.
• Sleep. Restorative poses and an evening class make it easier to wind down. Our post for Perth and Western Australia looks at sleep and routine in more detail.
• Neck pain. Standing poses lift the chest and free the neck. Our tension headache guide covers the neck and jaw.
• Weather and heat. You cannot change the weather, but a cool, quiet practice helps. See our heat headache post for Darwin.
• Lights and screens. Resting the eyes is the theme of Mr Iyengar’s headache advice. Our post for Brisbane and Gold Coast workers is about the desk day.
• Missed meals. Yoga does not feed you. Do not skip lunch to fit a class in.

Slow breathing for a stress-prone system

Where can you do yoga for migraine in Australia?

In short: in our Darwin studios, or in live online yoga classes from anywhere in Australia.

Flametree teaches at Woolner and Coolalinga in greater Darwin, and many classes run LIVE online at the same time. The teacher can see you, and adapts the class if a migraine is near. Our online yoga classes page explains how it works and what the time difference is in each state. Readers in north Queensland can see our post for Townsville and Cairns.

New to Flametree, or away 3 months or more? Get 2 free classes, then 10 at half price, in Darwin or LIVE online. Check the class times in your own time zone, or reserve a class.

Migraine triggers and yoga: questions people ask

What are the most common migraine triggers?

In a study of 1,207 people with migraine, the most common triggers were stress (79.7%), not eating (57.3%), weather (53.2%) and sleep disturbance (49.8%).

Can stress cause a migraine?

Stress was the most common trigger people named, at about 8 in 10. Migraine is tied to the automatic nervous system, which is the system stress acts on.

Can yoga help migraine triggers?

Yoga cannot stop the weather or a busy week, but it calms the system those triggers act on. In a 2020 trial, yoga added to usual care gave about 3.5 fewer headaches a month.

How often should I do yoga for migraine?

The trials that worked ran for about three months, with practice several times a week. Regular classes between attacks matter more than a one-off session.

What should I do during a migraine?

Geeta Iyengar advised bending forward with the forehead resting on a support, at a height where the neck relaxes, with no backbends or hard effort. See our migraine relief page.

Can I do online yoga classes for migraine?

Yes. Flametree’s live online classes run from Darwin, the teacher can see you, and the class is adapted if you tell your teacher a migraine is near.

Where this comes from

Kelman 2007, Kumar 2020 and Wells 2021, checked on PubMed and linked above. Mr BKS Iyengar, Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health, p. 355. Dr J. T. Shah, Therapeutic Yoga (foreword by Mr BKS Iyengar), Vakils, Feffer and Simons, Mumbai, 1999, pp. xiii and xix. Dr Timothy McCall, Yoga as Medicine, chapter 18. Geeta S Iyengar, Yoga Retreat Australia 2009, question and answer session, Iyengar Yoga Australia video library. All summarised in our own words.

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