What is a migraine?
A migraine is a common neurological condition that causes recurrent attacks of head pain, usually moderate to severe and often felt as a throbbing on one side of the head. Unlike a typical tension headache, a migraine frequently comes with other symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and heightened sensitivity to light, sound and sometimes smell. Attacks can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
Migraines can be genuinely disabling, making it hard to carry on with normal activities during an attack. They are more common in women and often run in families. While there is no cure, understanding your triggers and using the right treatments can greatly reduce their impact.
Migraine phases and aura
Migraines often unfold in phases, though not everyone experiences all of them. Some people notice warning signs in the day or two before an attack, such as mood changes, food cravings or tiredness. Around a third of people experience an aura — temporary neurological symptoms that usually come before the headache.
An aura most commonly involves visual disturbances, such as flashing lights, zigzag lines or blind spots, but can also include tingling, numbness or difficulty speaking. The aura typically lasts up to an hour. After the headache eases, many people feel drained or 'hungover' for a day or so — the postdrome phase.
Common triggers
Migraines are often brought on by triggers, which vary from person to person. Keeping a diary can help you spot yours. Common triggers include:
- •Stress, or the relief after stress
- •Lack of sleep, or changes in sleep pattern
- •Skipping meals or dehydration
- •Hormonal changes, such as around periods
- •Certain foods and drinks, including alcohol and caffeine
- •Bright lights, loud noise or strong smells
- •Changes in weather
Treatment and prevention
Treatment falls into two areas. For acute attacks, options range from over-the-counter painkillers to specific migraine medicines such as triptans, along with anti-sickness medication; resting in a quiet, dark room often helps. Taking treatment early in an attack tends to work best, but overusing painkillers can cause medication-overuse headaches, so it is important not to rely on them too frequently.
For people who have frequent or severe migraines, preventive treatments taken regularly can reduce how often attacks occur. These include specific medications and, increasingly, newer options. If migraines are affecting your life, a doctor can help build a treatment plan tailored to you, alongside managing triggers and lifestyle factors.
Living with migraine
For people who experience migraines regularly, the condition can affect work, relationships and quality of life, so managing it goes beyond treating individual attacks. Building daily habits that reduce the likelihood of attacks makes a real difference: keeping consistent sleep and meal times, staying hydrated, exercising regularly, and managing stress all help stabilise the body's routines that migraines are sensitive to.
Keeping a migraine diary is one of the most useful tools. Recording when attacks happen, what preceded them, and how severe they were often reveals personal triggers and patterns that can then be addressed. Many people find that identifying and managing even a few key triggers noticeably reduces how often they get migraines.
It also helps to plan for attacks: knowing your treatment works best taken early, keeping medication accessible, and having a strategy for resting in a dark, quiet space can lessen the impact when a migraine does strike. If migraines are frequently disrupting your life despite these measures, this is a clear sign to see a doctor about preventive treatment rather than simply enduring them.
Migraine in women and hormonal links
Migraines are around three times more common in women than men, and for many women they are closely linked to hormonal changes, particularly fluctuations in oestrogen. This connection explains several common patterns: migraines that cluster around the time of periods (menstrual migraine), changes during pregnancy, and shifts around menopause.
Menstrual migraines tend to occur in the days just before or during a period, when oestrogen levels fall, and can be more severe and harder to treat than migraines at other times. Some women find their migraines improve during pregnancy, especially after the first trimester, while others notice changes with hormonal contraception. Around menopause, migraine patterns often shift again as hormone levels change.
Because of these links, it is worth mentioning any hormonal pattern to your doctor, as it can guide treatment. Certain considerations also apply to hormonal contraception for women who have migraine with aura, which is why this is something to discuss specifically with a healthcare professional.
Managing migraine triggers day to day
While migraines cannot always be prevented, understanding and managing triggers gives many people real control over how often attacks occur. Triggers are highly individual, and what sets off a migraine in one person may have no effect on another, which is why a personalised approach works better than blanket rules.
Some of the most common and manageable triggers relate to routine. Irregular sleep — both too little and too much — frequently provokes attacks, so a consistent sleep schedule helps. Skipping meals and dehydration are also common culprits, making regular eating and steady fluid intake worthwhile habits. Stress, and notably the let-down period after stress, is another frequent trigger, which is why some people get weekend migraines as the working week's tension eases.
Environmental and sensory factors such as bright or flickering lights, loud noise, strong smells and weather changes can also play a role, as can certain foods and drinks in susceptible people. Rather than restricting life unnecessarily, the most effective approach is to use a migraine diary to identify which triggers genuinely affect you, then focus on managing those specific ones while keeping the supportive daily routines that stabilise your system.