Lifestyle Changes for Migraine Management

Lifestyle Changes for Migraine Management

Research shows that certain healthy behaviors, done consistently, reduce the frequency and intensity of migraine symptoms. Some of these behaviors are even proven to work as well as some migraine medications. The evidence is so compelling that headache specialists now recommend lifestyle changes as a part of any migraine treatment plan.

No matter where you are in your journey with headache and migraine, these are the lifestyle changes you can use every day to help you improve.

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Sleep

Of all the holistic ways to treat migraines, sleep can be the most powerful. However, having migraine makes you up to eight times more likely to have a sleep disorder. That’s why one focus of the Care Tuner app is getting you the healthy, consistent sleep your body needs. Our Sleep module helps you identify your natural patterns, develop healthy habits, and set up the right conditions for sleep with migraine. It also gives you tools to cope with the stress and head pain that can keep you awake.

Nutrition

There are a lot of confusing messages out there about what foods reduce migraine. It’s created a fad for deprivation diets that are hard to maintain. But promising research indicates that you can achieve natural migraine relief through a sensible, balanced approach to nutrition. The app’s Nutrition module helps you evaluate your habits, then layer in healthy nutritional strategies for migraine, including:

    • Eating foods that reduce your inflammation
    • Creating consistency in your caffeine and nutritional patterns
    • Helping you understand and address unhelpful habits, like emotional eating, that may inhibit your progress with migraine

Hydration

Dehydration is a proven migraine trigger. Drinking the right amount of water for you is a small but powerful way to protect against headache and migraine attacks.

The Care Tuner app’s Hydration module has tools to help you figure out your signs of dehydration, determine the daily water intake ideal for your body, and get you into a lasting habit of replenishing fluids to prevent migraine attacks.

Exercise

Movement is such a powerful migraine treatment that it’s been shown to be just as effective as medications for migraine. And yet up to 78% of people with migraine avoid exercise — perfectly understandable, since exercise can trigger attacks. No matter your fitness level or migraine severity, the app’s Movement module will help you find the right exercise frequency, intensity, time and types for you. Migraine-centric tools, tips and techniques include:

      • Body awareness & posture assessment
      • Basic movement patterns for functional strength
      • Complementary Movement: yoga, tai chi, qigong, acupressure
      • Aerobic exercise
      • Physical therapy techniques to relieve neck and shoulder tension

Mindfulness and Meditation

Believe it or not, some of the most important forms of natural migraine relief come from our own minds. That’s not to say migraine is “all in your head.” We know it’s not! Rather, it’s to say that stress is a trigger for 80% of people with migraine. The app is packed with tools to help you reduce stress through expert-led mindfulness, meditation and relaxation practices, including:

    • Brain-training for everyday mindfulness practice with migraine
    • Guided meditations for specific intentions like migraine symptom relief, building confidence, goal-setting, gratitude, and changing your relationship with migraine pain
    • Guided relaxation exercises including visualizations, breathing exercises, body scans and autogenics

Each becomes a powerful form of migraine medicine you can bring with you everywhere.

Psychological health

Living with migraine requires a lot of psychological coping skills. Improving those skills through psychotherapy techniques helps reduce migraine in at least two ways: It dials down the emotional stress that can bring on attacks; and it eases the mental strain that can come from living with migraine.

The Care Tuner app has entire modules dedicated to Self-Awareness, Self-Efficacy, and Growth. Its activities help you learn to analyze difficult feelings, reframe unhelpful thoughts and regulate emotions. It also helps you increase confidence, connect to purpose and joy, and celebrate successes — all important steps toward living a more free and expansive life with migraine.

Adding healthy behaviors to your migraine treatment plan

Small behavior changes in any of the above categories can make a big difference toward improving your life with migraine. And research shows that making changes in more than one category will give you an even bigger boost –like cross-training for the migraine brain.
The Care Tuner app makes it easy to discover the lifestyle changes that work for you, at the pace that’s right for you, so that you can start feeling better. Take your first step by downloading the app today.