Exercise as trigger and help
Hi! I wanted to ask how people deal with exercise. I know that exercise is important to health and can certainly help in pain reduction. However, for me it is difficult to get into a routine when you experience 15 to more headache days a month. And physical activity is definitely not happening during a migraine.
Thoughts or advice?
HI spockpants,
Thank you for your question! You're not alone. I've heard from many patients who find it difficult to exercise with migraine disease. I hate to exercise, which is no excuse I know. Add chronic pain to the mix and I never seem to "fit" it in.
We have a large number of articles on this subject I can share with you; https://migraine.com/?s=exercise&submit=Go and
https://migraine.com/?s=exertion&submit=Go,I hope those help and I bet others will be along shortly to share their stories with you.
Nancy
Hi there. I also find exercise to be a trigger. But on the flip side, I have difficulty sleeping, and when I don't sleep well, I get a migraine every time. When I exercise, I sleep a lot better.
So I compromise by exercising lightly... enough that my body gets tired, but not enough that I'm so exerted I start getting really worn out or heart pounding (which is when the headache starts for me.) For me, this is walking briskly 30-40 minutes per day. On days I'm absolutely laid out and can't even zombie crawl from bed to the bathroom without hitting all the walls, I skip it because of the falling risk, but I do try to walk even when I have a lower grade migraine, again because it helps me sleep, and sleep is one of the things that eventually helps the migraine dissipate.
