Meditation for migraines

In Australia there are around three million migraine sufferers and around 23 per cent of all households contain a migraine sufferer. Anyone who has experienced a migraine, or knows someone who has, also knows how debilitating they can be. A variety of pharmaceuticals can offer some relief as can dietary modification and herbal medicine. Now a new study has shown that you can add meditation to that list of things that can provide relief for migraine sufferers.

In the new study 92 subjects took part who were frequent migraine sufferers experiencing more than two migraines per month. The subjects were all people who had not previously done meditation.

For the study the subjects were divided into four groups. Each group were given a style of meditation that used a phrase or technique in their meditation; a spiritual meditation group (meditating on the phrase “God is love”), an internally focused secular meditation group (“I am content”), an externally focused secular meditation group (“sand is soft”), and a fourth group that used a progressive relaxation technique. Each group practised their assigned meditation technique for 20 minutes per day for 30 days.

All groups kept headache diaries showing headache frequency, headache severity, and medication use.

Only the spiritual meditation group showed a reduction in migraine frequency but all groups showed a reduction in the use of medication. Additionally, the spiritual meditation group showed a sharper decline in medication use than the other groups.

It seems the spiritual angle might have something extra to offer migraine sufferers.

Source: Behavioural Medicine