Adding yoga to your regularly prescribed migraine treatment may be better than medication alone, according to a new study. The new research suggests that yoga may help people with migraines to have headaches that are less common, do not last as long, and are less painful.
“Migraine is one of the most common headache disorders, but only about half of people who take medication for it get real relief,” said study author Rohit Bhatia, MD, DM, DNB, of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India and member of the American Academy of Neurology. “The good news is that practicing something as simple and accessible as yoga can help much more than just medicine. And all you need is a mate.”
The study involved 114 people between the ages of 18 and 50 who had episodic migraines. Participants experienced four to fourteen headaches per month and were randomly assigned to two groups:medication alone or yoga plus medication.
The people in the yoga group were given a one-hour yoga practice that included breathing and relaxation exercises and postures. People were guided by a yoga instructor three days a week for a month. Then they practiced at home five days a week for the next two months. Both groups received appropriate medications and counseling about lifestyle changes that can help with migraines, such as getting enough sleep, eating regularly, and exercising.
Participants kept a log of how long their headache lasted, how severe it was, and what medications they were taking.
The study showed that people improved in both the medication group and the yoga group, but the benefit was greater in the yoga group in all areas, including headache frequency, pain intensity, medication use, and how much migraine interfered with their daily lives.
For headache frequency, the yoga group started with an average of 9.1 headaches per month and ended the study with just 4.7 headaches per month, a 48% reduction. The medication-only group reported an average of 7.7 headaches per month at the start of the study and 6.8 at the end of the three months, a 12% reduction.
The average number of pills participants used in the yoga group decreased by 47% after three months. Meanwhile, the average number of pills used by the drug-only group fell by about 12%.
