How to Identify Your Migraine Triggers

Migraine trigger identification and management is crucial in managing your migraines because some of those triggers may be avoidable and if so, that could help you have fewer migraines.

One of the most important things that you can do in trying to identify your triggers is to keep a good, accurate migraine diary. We all need to learn to focus and pay attention to what our body is telling us. Keep in mind that a migraine may happen up to 48 hours after we encounter that migraine trigger. So let’s learn to be aware of our bodies and lets learn to be aware of whats going on around our bodies so we can identify those things that can be triggering these migraines.

Many people want to know if there are foods that are triggering their migraines. The best way to find out is to do an elimination diet. With an elimination diet, you take a list of known potential food triggers and you start by eliminating all of them. You leave them all eliminated for approximately a week, then you have them back in one at a time. Make sure you keep a log to of all of these so if you add them back in one at a time, one per week, and you see that the food has not cause the migraine during that week, then it probably is not a trigger for you. You should continue this process until you added back in all the potential food triggers and then you know. Don’t be disappointed if you do an elimination diet and found that you don’t have any food triggers. That’s a good thing.

Stress is another thing that comes to mind when we talk about migraine triggers. Don’t just assume that stress itself is a trigger. There’s controversy about that but were not sure. So the best thing you can do to determine if stress itself is a trigger for you is once again look back at your migraine diary, pay attention to the things you do or don’t do during periods of stress. These things can be not getting enough water, becoming dehydrated, drinking too much caffeine, not sleeping well, crying or any number of things that you do or may not do during stressful time could be migraine triggers.

So whether its stress itself or things you do or did not do during stressful times, it doesn’t really matter as long as you can identify what those triggers are.

Again, if you can identify your migraine triggers, you can reduce your migraine burden a great deal.