Morning Headaches: Causes and Remedy

Have you ever felt head ache or dizziness in morning? I bet you have if you are a late night sleeper. There is an integral relation between sleep and headaches.

What are headaches?

Headache is a sensation of pain in any part of the head which ranges from mild to severe and can occur due to variable reasons such as sleeplessness, wearing wrong eye glasses, stress and others. Morning headaches is a sense of pain in any part of the head which ranges from mild to severe and correlated with lack of sleep, stress or any underlying disease. It can often result in waking you up early or giving a day out drowsiness and discomfort or sometimes gives an odd sensation in head.

Reason behind Morning Headaches

While we feel morning headaches are not a serious concern. Our body feels it differently. Falling asleep and waking up is cycle of sleep which is important to regulate our health. Getting into the details, what happens to our body is bit different than what we think. Our brain is sensitive and happens to give alert signal to our body whenever we wake up from sleep. Often our brain feels disturbed due to sleep deprivation which results in distorted vision during morning and we feel abnormal pain in head.

While there can be multiple underlying diseases which can cause morning headaches. Here are some major reasons for morning headaches:-

Migraine

Migraine is neurological disease which has a symptom of severe headache on front side of head or sometimes in both sides of head. Research shows that Migraine affects 19% of females and 9% of males. Why high number of females? We will discuss it below.

Migraine often starts early morning, between 4 a.m to 9 a.m and inflates dehydration and poor sleep which result in early wakeup and morning headaches. Aftermath of Migrane? Tiredness and irritation which may last days often referred as Migraine Hangover.

Some of the severe symptoms of migraine are vomiting, neck pain, nausea and nasal congestion. It is common in humans and has a high chance to develop overtime.

Insomnia

Insomnia is sleep disorder in which you will have difficulty in falling sleep and staying asleep. Insomnia drains away your energy and has a severe impact on health and your day to day performance. Often due to sleep abnormality, your body tends to show weakness which is carried on to the whole day. You will don’t feel rested after a night sleep, probability are you have developed insomnia and it contributes to your morning headaches.

Sleep Apnea

Sleep apnea is a serious state where people repeatedly stop breathing during sleep. It happens due to lack of oxygen which leads to increased pressure on the brain and triggers a headache. Some common symptoms are snoring, tiredness and headaches.

Teeth Grinding

If you are grinding your teeth too often, you are causing tension in your temporomandibular joints (TMJ) which serves as a connection between your lower jaw and your skull. Excessive teeth grinding can result in tension between your jaws with affect the brain and causes headaches.

Alcohol

Hangover is no joke. Consuming too much alcohol at night results in an uneasy morning accompanied by severe headaches. Alcohol contains ethanol which is absorbed by the small intestine making you pee. Too much alcohol results in more excretion of ethanol which in turn makes you dehydrated and cause headaches. Alcohol affects several neurotransmitters in brain which causes headaches.

Pain Relievers (OTC)

If you consume too much OTC pain relievers at night over a continuous period of time, you may face chronic headaches. Repeated use of Pain relievers such as Tylenol and Advil triggers chemical change in brain which causes morning headaches.

Medication side effect

Often we use non prescribed medicine from our local pharmacy but some medicines have serious side effects. High estrogen pills cause morning headaches. Medication is all about how our body takes a dose of chemical to initiate reaction. Some may not feel it and some might get severe morning headaches.

Anxiety and depression

Anxiety and depression is a root of most diseases. It all starts with anxiety and depression. Researchers believe that anxiety and depression has a close link with sleep disorders and tension headaches. Anxiety causes stress and restlessness which effects your brain functions and causes sleep deprivation.

Allergy

We all love food. Don’t we? However, is every food good for us? Is one question we must ask, mostly to ourselves! Eating too much processed food and oily food can cause stomach inflammation which triggers migraine. According to research food sensitive people shows increased tendencies of migraine.

Oversleeping

Have you overslept and felt a head pain? You might have.

Oversleeping contributes to headaches. Our brain has several neurotransmitters which signal the brain when to fall sleep and when to wake up. Too much sleep can disrupt the neurotransmission flow through our body.

Cold

Common cold is a household term. Whenever you are suffering from cold you may feel weakness, headaches and loss of appetite. Why headaches? A person might suffer headaches due to cold because of ‘cytokines’ Cytokines are released by your immune system as a defensive mechanism which causes inflammation in our sinuses and results in headaches.

What are sinuses?

Sinuses are the hollow cavities in your skull connected to the nasal cavity. Infection in your respiratory track can thicken and inflame your sinus membranes due to congestion of bacteria and viruses.

Gastro problem

Gastro problem are a common affair in children and adults. It may occur due to bad food habit. Gastro problems are directly related to sleep disorder. Lack of sleep increases the urge to consume junk food. And excessive junk food can result in gastro problems.

We don’t prefer releasing gas during our working hours due to various personal reasons. Holding gas in your stomach for excessive time may result in cramp, dizziness, abdominal pain and gastric headaches. Morning headaches due to gas are common among people with long office working hours and less sleep.

Morning headaches are a common thing among youths. Young generation tends to have a bad habit of late night sleep and females are more exposed to it.

Why females have more headaches than males?

The answer is simple. Due to change in hormones. Females often face hormones related headache triggers which includes:

Menopause
Pregnancy
Menstruation
Taking Contraceptives
Lactation

Due to estrogen which is a major factor for the regulation and development of female reproductive system. Women often feel headaches whenever there is a fluctuation in estrogen level which is common during menstruation period.

Research has shown that in U.S. alone headaches causes 112 million sick days in every year. That’s huge isn’t it. Why not considering some remedies to get away with morning headaches.

Remedies of Morning headaches:

Frequent exercise before going to sleep may help prevent morning headaches. Our body goes into replenish mode after the workout resulting in better sleep using the right pillows.
Avoiding caffeine can help you fall asleep and prevent morning headaches.
Turn off electronics hours before going to sleep causes less strain on your brain and eyes and help you sleep early.
Scheduling your day and timing of sleep. Adjusting you’re your sleep hours to get early on bed. Including book reading, meditation and yoga in your daily schedule can relax your brain and body and helps in effective sleep.
Consuming less alcohol at time may prevent you from staying awake.