You Drank Too Much Last Night
Headaches are a classic symptom of a hangover â that much is obvious. The body metabolizes alcohol into the toxic substance acetaldehyde, and that, in addition to general dehydration, is whatâs responsible for morning hangover headaches, notes Johns Hopkins Medicine.
Perhaps more surprisingly, alcohol is a known sleep disruptor, affecting the quality and quantity of sleep you get in the second half of your night. Meaning: You may not think you drank a lot, but youâre still saddled with head pain in the morning because the booze messed with your slumber.
The fix: Rethink that drink at night to help you get more restful sleep.
Improve Indoor Air Quality
Allergy sufferers are more likely to have a sinus headache. You can keep allergies under control and prevent headaches by improving the air quality in your home.
There are a number of ways that you can improve indoor air quality. Keeping your home clean and properly ventilated will help improve the air quality in your home. Changing filters often and using filters specifically for people with allergies will also help.
One: Figure Out Whats Causing Your Pain In The First Place Here Are Three Common Culprits
That painful throbbing in the middle of your face, the ache just above your eyes, the swelling that makes it all feel worse. Sounds like another sinus headache in progress.
Whether its a rare occurrence that comes on suddenly or a chronic discomfort that lingers far too long, sinus headaches can sideline you from everyday activities. The best way to prevent that from happening? Understand what might be causing your pain in the first place.
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Spice Up Your Diet To Ease Sinus Pressure
“Many people find that spicy food like peppers or hot mustard opens up their nasal passages and gives them some relief from sinus pain. There is good evidence that capsaicin, which is the active ingredient found in chile peppers, is effective in relieving some types of pain,” says Das. Capsaicin preparations have been investigated for the treatment of some facial pain syndromes and of rhinitis with promising results. But if you have the taste for them, you can try spicy foods to help with sinus discomfort.
What Types Of Headaches Are More Common In The Morning
If youre having chronic morning headaches, theyre most likely a migraine or tension headache. A migraine often starts between four and nine a.m., Dr. Shadbehr says. That could be because of migraine triggers like dehydration or poor sleep, or because endorphins and some hormones dip to their lowest just as youre waking. Migraine is more common than you might think: It affects around 15% of the population, according to a 2018 study published in the journal Headache. For people assigned female at birth, that figure jumps to 20%.1
Tension headaches are another common culprit of morning headaches. How do you know if its a migraine or tension headache? The location and quality of the pain are two clues. A tension headache often feels like a tight band is gripping your whole head and the pain is usually dull, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. A migraine, on the other hand, is often localized to one spotsay, right behind your eye. The pain is piercing, and you may have other symptoms, such as sensitivity to light or nausea.
Its usually pretty easy to tell when you have a migraine versus a tension headache, but there could be other things going on too. Ahead are potential reasons youre waking up with a headache.
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How Sleep Apnea Causes Morning Headaches
People who experience frequent headaches are more likely to be diagnosed with a sleep disorder than those who do not. And sleep loss associated with most sleep disorders has the potential to cause headaches. But headaches that occur in the morning are especially common with sleep apnea.
A sleep disorder characterized by repeated pauses in breathing during sleep, sleep apnea can cause snoring, morning headaches, and excessive daytime sleepiness.
In obstructive sleep apnea , the most common form of sleep apnea, the throat muscles relax intermittently and block the airway during sleep, thereby reducing the amount of oxygen in the blood and the brain. When oxygen levels drop, the correlating increase in carbon dioxide causes the blood vessels in the brain to dilate. The pain caused by that dilation is usually experienced as a morning headache.
Doctors treating OSA may recommend lifestyle changes to help you lose weight or quit smoking. In more severe cases, patients may use a continuous positive airway pressure machine to help them breathe more and snore less.
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When Are Morning Headaches More Serious Which Diseases Are Associated With Morning Headaches
- The diseases most commonly associated with headaches are meningitis, an infection of the spinal cord, or a brain tumor. Shingles can also trigger a headache.
- Other possibilities include trigeminal neuralgia , aneurysm, temporal arteritis, or other autoimmune disorders.
- None of these cause headaches in the morning specifically, and all can cause bad headaches, at any time of day.
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Causes And Symptoms Of Sinus Headaches
Causes of a real sinus headache are an infection in your sinuses known as sinusitis. It may feel like the following:
- Pressure and fullness in your cheeks, forehead, and brows.
- Bending over causes increasing pain
- Ache in your your upper teeth
- Swollen or puffy face
Sinusitis usually occurs after a respiratory viral infection or cold. There is normally a thick discolored mucus, a reduced sense of smell, and in a nutshell, with a sinus headache your whole face hurts.
You may develop a sinus headache from the common cold, a deviated septum where there is not sufficient air flow to help drain the mucus from your sinuses, seasonal allergies which cause congestion and mucus, and nasal polyps which also prevent mucus from draining properly.
Symptoms Of Sinus Headaches
These are some of the symptoms of sinus headaches:
- Pressure-like pain in specific parts of your head or face, on one or both sides
- A dull ache behind your eyes, forehead, cheekbones, the bridge of your nose, or upper teeth
- Pain that gets worse if you bend forward or move your head suddenly
- Pain that is worse in the morning, because mucus accumulates in the nasal passages overnight
- Pain that becomes more acute when you experience temperature changes, such as going out into the cold after being in a warm room
- Puffy, swollen, or tender face
- Discomfort or a feeling of fullness in your ears
- Tearing or redness in the eyes
- Inability to smell
Symptoms of a sinus headache typically start around the same time as the sinus infection, or right after. They get better or worse in parallel with your sinusitis.
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What Home Remedies Can Help Relieve Sinus Headaches
Sinus headaches can be incredibly painful and make it difficult to go about your day. However, there are a few things you can do at home to help ease the pain and get rid of your headache. One of the best home remedies for sinus headaches is to drink lots of fluids.
This helps to thin out the mucus in your sinuses and makes it easier for your body to drain them. Drinking hot drinks like tea or soup can also be helpful as the steam can open up your sinuses. If you have a fever, take acetaminophen or ibuprofen to help reduce the inflammation in your sinuses.
You can also apply a warm compress to your forehead and face for a few minutes to help ease the pain. Finally, try to avoid activities that will make your headache worse. This includes things like flying, smoking, and staying in aironditioned rooms.
If you cant avoid these things, be sure to take breaks often and drink lots of fluids.
What Are The Most Common Causes Of Morning Headaches
Whether its a migraine, a tension headache, or something else, here are 11 reasons you may be waking up with a headache:
There is an integral relationship between sleep and headaches, Dr. Shadbehr says. Poor sleep quality can cause headaches, and improved sleep quality can help relieve them. There is also a link between insomnia and headaches. If you regularly have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, and you dont feel well rested after a nights sleep, theres a possibility youre dealing with this common sleep disorderand that it could be contributing to why your head is killing you in the morning.
Treating insomnia starts with getting to the root of the problem. Insomnia can be both its own primary problem or a side effect of other conditions. Plenty of things can cause chronic insomnia, from certain mental disorders to stress and poor sleep habits. To get to the bottom of your insomnia , speak with a healthcare professional.
Sleep apnea is a potentially serious condition that causes people to repeatedly stop breathing during their sleep. This condition is linked to a number of health issues, including causing you to wake up with a headache. Heres what happens: A lack of oxygen can lead to increased pressure in the head that spurs a headache, Vernon Williams, MD, sports neurologist and director of the Kerlan-Jobe Center for Sports Neurology and Pain Medicine at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, tells SELF.
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Treating Sinus Headaches With Medication
Keep Your Body Hydrated
Staying hydrated is beneficial for your general health and helps to flush out toxins from your body.
Drinking plenty of fluids also helps to thin nasal secretions, hence making your sinus passages less congested. When you are dehydrated, your sinus passages tend to dry out, leading to increased pressure, discomfort and pain.
If you feel bloated from drinking lots of water, or dont enjoy drinking water in general, there are other types of fluids you can take to help you stay hydrated.
Drinking more soup during meal times, having tea or sucking on ice cubes can also help you stay hydrated. Additionally, increasing your intake on water-based vegetables and fruits will help to increase fluid intake in your diet.
Just as there are things that help hydrate, there are also some that do the opposite. For example, caffeine and alcohol dehydrate your body and should be avoided.
Fried and oily foods are also not the best options if you have sinus, and you should stay away from unhealthy food in general as they could worsen your condition.
Its important to be mindful of what you eat and drink to speed up your recovery from sinus. Healthy lifestyle habits like drinking more water and eating healthy, even while youre well, will also go a long way towards benefiting your overall health.
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Is Your Headache One
If your headache in the Morning is behind your eyes or eyebrows, its likely to be a tension headache. However, if the pain feels like its concentrated on just one side of your head you may be experiencing what is known as a cluster headache.
Rare, but debilitating, cluster headaches are a type of headache that happens in cycles that can last weeks or months. The pain of a cluster headache tends to focus behind one eye or on one side of the head.
How To Evaluate Morning Headache Pain
The first step in evaluating your morning headache is to notice whether you have any neurological symptoms. This will help determine whether your headache pain needs urgent medical attention.
Keep in mind that morning headache pain with no neurological symptoms usually means that its just a tension or sinus headache. This type of pain is common and represents 90% of all headaches. The remaining 10% of headaches that come with other neurological symptoms are typically either migraines or headaches from ailments like earaches. While unpleasant, these types of headaches are usually not concerning, either. Only a very small percentage of headaches with neurological symptoms require immediate medical attention. The key is to identify these rare instances, which is why knowing how to recognize abnormal neurological symptoms is vital.
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What Causes Headaches And Migraine In General
Its important to understand that a migraine is not the same as a run-of-the-mill headache. While a headache is caused by nerves that signal muscles and blood vessels to send pain signals to the brain, migraine attacks are not as well understood. In fact, migraine is actually a neurological condition. Experts think this is whats going on with migraine: Nerve cells in the brain overreact to various triggers, which then causes blood vessels to go haywire, leading to chemical changes in the brain that can lead to severe head pain and other symptoms like nausea and changes to your vision, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
What Else Does Nasal Breathing Do
One of the most important ways that nasal breathing helps oxygen flow is via a gas called nitric oxide. The role of nitric oxide in the body and respiration was only recently identified.
Nitric oxide is produced in the nasal sinuses by specific enzymes. Its instrumental in delivering oxygen around the body efficiently because it regulates blood flow. When it mixes with air delivered to the lung, it increases arterial oxygen tension and reduces blood pressure.
Nitric oxide also has a vital role deep within your bodys cells and is produced elsewhere in the body but the biggest contributor is the minute amounts inhaled through the nose into the lungs.
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Waking Up With Headaches: 15 Possible Causes Prevention And Treatments
Do you often suffer from Waking up with headaches? If it only happens occasionally and the cause is known, then there is nothing to worry about. Read this article to know when to see a doctor right away if you get a headache after sleeping?
Its not uncommon to wake up every morning with a headache. Millions of people struggle with morning headaches or any other time of day. It could be a form of migraine. It could also be something else.
About 1 out 13 people suffer from morning headaches. These headaches usually affect women more than men and occur most often in those aged 45-64.
A variety of health conditions and sleep patterns can lead to headaches upon waking up. The most common causes are sleep apnea or migraine and a lack of sleep. A headache can also be caused by alcohol, teeth grinding, or certain medications. Sometimes, your headaches are caused by a combination of disorders.
It is not a good way to begin the day. If this happens enough often, it will likely be a top priority to find the root cause. Is it a sleep problem or a headache? Do you have a headache or sleep problem?
You might think that you may have a history of chronic headaches. You might be suffering from poor sleep.
Sleep deprivation could be causing headaches if you have a hard time sleeping. You might be unable to get the rest you need because of your aching head.
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What Causes Morning Headaches
As you transition from sleep to wakefulness, parts of your brain start to wake up too. Your brain becomes more responsive to changes in your body position, touch, and sound. During this period of heightened sensitivity, you may be more susceptible to pain.
Additionally, the hypothalamus in the brain is involved in both sleep and pain processes. The hypothalamus regulates your natural circadian rhythms and sleep cycles and modulates sensation and pain. Disturbances in the hypothalamus during sleep affect your ability to tolerate pain. As a result, while you may not have felt pain as you slept, you may feel it in the morning.
Sleep disorders commonly trigger morning head pain, but there are numerous possible causes for waking up with a headache.
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What About Mouth Breathing
Mouth breathing delivers no nitric oxide. It also provides none of the air warming and humidifying properties of nasal breathing. In humans, its really just a survival mechanism, to be used when the nasal breathing is impossible.
Mouth breathing during sleep will not only give you blocked and painful sinuses, it is the root cause of snoring, which can progress to sleep apnea, a condition linked to heart failure, high blood pressure and Alzheimers disease.