16 Migraine Triggers That Can Cause Migraine Attacks

Being part of the people-who-have-migraine club isn’t exactly fun, but you’re certainly not alone in it. According to a 2021 study published in the journal Headache, nearly 16% of American adults deal with the condition.¹What’s interesting, though, is that your migraine triggers might look wildly different from those that trigger your best friend, neighbor, or the millions of other people living with migraine.

Before we get into the specifics of migraine triggers, we need to dispel a common myth about what migraine is and isn’t—specifically when it comes to headaches. While a migraine attack and a headache can both involve head pain, the terms aren’t interchangeable. A headache can be a not-so-awesome preview of what’s to come, but it’s not the same as migraine.

According to the American Migraine Foundation, migraine is actually a neurological disorder or brain imbalance that can cause symptoms like headaches, sensitivity to light, vomiting, nausea, dizziness, and blurred vision, depending on the person. You’ll likely experience intense, throbbing pain on either side of your head or behind your eyes or temples. If you’ve ever had a headache so intense that throwing up felt like a relief, you’ve probably experienced migraine.

The other main difference is how long it lasts. Unlike headaches that are often short-lived, a migraine episode goes through stages that can last anywhere from 4 to 72 hours, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Plus, migraine often has transient factors or triggers that raise your risk of an attack—let’s dive into those details, shall we?

Migraine vs. headache | Migraine causes | Non-food triggers | Food triggers | Migraine prevention

First, how do you know if it’s a migraine and not a headache?

Migraine, in general, is somewhat of a mystery. Just like no two people may experience the same triggers, migraine symptoms also run the gamut from mild to severe. Plus, they often progress through four stages, including prodrome, aura (a visual disturbance that can look like zigzags), attack, and post-drome, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Knowing the difference between an average headache and a mind-numbing migraine can help you act fast to appropriately treat whichever one you’re experiencing. But if they both cause headaches, how can you even tell which is which?

For one, a migraine can announce its presence several hours to days before the pain strikes. Early warning signs that a migraine may be on the horizon can appear one or two days before an attack.

Some prodromal symptoms to be aware of include mood changes, neck stiffness, fatigue, brain fog, yawning, food cravings, and increased urination. And once an episode is over, you may feel fatigued, both emotionally and physically.

Other features that point to a migraine and not a headache include intense, throbbing pain on one or both sides of the head instead of dull or mild pressure felt in the forehead or scalp. Additional symptoms like nausea, vomiting, increased sensitivity to sound or light, dizziness, and blurry vision are also clues to an impending migraine episode.

What causes migraine?

What causes migraine is somewhat of a mystery. However, some research suggests that abnormal changes in your brain’s biochemistry can lead to inflammation, which causes blood vessels to swell and activate pain pathways in the brain²—hence, the intense pain you feel at the start of a migraine.

Another possible cause, and one you have absolutely no control over, is genetics. If one of your parents has a history of migraine, there’s a 50% chance that you’ll have the condition too. Add both parents to the mix, and your odds increase to 75%, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Unfortunately, migraine triggers are different for everyone, so it’s hard to say if one thing will or will not set off symptoms for each person with the condition. That’s because things like genetic factors, age, biological sex, hormonal changes, reactions to physical and emotional stress, and sleep patterns differ from person to person, Medhat Mikhael, M.D., pain management specialist and medical director of the non-operative program at the Spine Health Center at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center, tells SELF.

Even if you have some idea of what to avoid, personal migraine triggers can be confusing. For instance, if you ate some fancy cheese and suspected it triggered a migraine, and then you ate the same cheese a month later and nothing happened, you were probably left scratching your head.

Often, one specific migraine trigger doesn’t spur an attack each time you’re exposed to it. So, a better working theory about migraine attacks might consider a combination of triggers instead of one cause alone. And there are some common culprits that seem to tip the scales toward triggering a migraine for a lot of people.

Non-food-related migraine triggers

We’ll dive into food-related triggers next, but let’s start with ones that aren’t on your dinner plate.

Hunger

You might want to think twice before skipping breakfast, or any other meal for that matter. That’s because foregoing meals or skimping on calories causes your blood sugar to drop, which can trigger a headache or a full-blown migraine episode, according to the National Headache Foundation.

Stress and anxiety

Stress is something we all experience to some degree. But if you’re also susceptible to migraine, any increase in life stress, worry, or anxiety can trigger a migraine. In fact, stress is a trigger for migraine attacks in nearly 70% of people who experience migraines.⁴ Some studies even suggest that people with generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder, in particular, have an increased incidence of migraine, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, though the exact link isn’t known.

Dehydration

One way to trigger a horrendous headache—including migraine—is to let yourself get dehydrated. While a lack of fluids may be the main culprit for some headaches, it seems that dehydration can aggravate a number of underlying medical conditions such as primary headache disorders, which includes our good friend, migraine.⁵

Weather changes

Ever thought your head was a weather psychic? You might be right. Drastic changes in heat, humidity, wind, and barometric pressure may be a migraine trigger for some people, according to the American Headache Society. While the research linking these two is sparse, it’s worth noting if you experience symptoms with the changing weather.

Exercise

According to the American Migraine Foundation, exercise can both trigger and treat migraines. On one hand, regular exercise can reduce the frequency of migraines. That’s because exercise releases the natural painkillers in our brain called endorphins. It can also reduce stress and help us sleep better at night—two other migraine triggers. On the other hand, exercise has been known to trigger migraine in certain people. It’s not totally known why that’s the case, but it may have something to do with exercise increasing blood pressure, which affects the nerves in the brain.

Allergies

Ah, the smell of the outdoors. Blooming buds and tree pollen abound. For some people that may only lead to never-ending bouts of sneezing, wheezing, and congestion. But for others, these outdoor allergic offenders may also increase migraine frequency too.⁷

Light, sound, and smell

Think about this the next time you’re considering a spritz of very potent perfume: Sensory stimuli, including bright light, loud sound, or strong smells can trigger migraine. Clifford Segil, D.O., a neurologist at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, tells SELF that among sensory triggers, visual stimulation appears to be the most common. Some people describe migraine being provoked by bright or flashing lights, while others report being triggered by certain visual patterns.

Certain medications

Medications can be a lifesaver for many chronic health conditions, including migraine attacks. But if you deal with regular migraine episodes and take acute pain medication more than 15 days a month, you may experience medication-overuse headache (MOH), according to the American Migraine Foundation. This can happen if you start taking more medication—particularly pain medications like narcotics, triptans, and others—in response to an increase in attacks. Why this happens isn’t totally understood, but it is thought to have something to do with how these medications lower your threshold for pain while simultaneously reinforcing pain pathways in the brain.

Teeth grinding

Bruxism (teeth grinding and clenching) can trigger headaches and even migraine episodes, according to the Mayo Clinic, since clenching your teeth at night can put a lot of stress on the temporomandibular joint and the supporting head and neck muscles. While wearing a night guard or a custom orthotic appliance might not be the sexiest look, it could help you avoid your next migraine attack.

Computer screens

We’re all guilty of staring at a screen too long sometimes. But if you’re susceptible to migraine, you may want to think twice before binge-watching your favorite Netflix series. According to Sage Journals,⁸ spending over two hours daily gazing at a screen is associated with migraine in young adults.

Too much or too little sleep

Sleep is another big trigger for migraine, but like many things on this list, it’s not a simple explanation. Not sleeping enough can trigger a migraine, but so can sleeping too much, according to The Migraine Trust. The idea is that basically your circadian rhythm—what tells you when it’s time to sleep and wake up—gets all out of whack and triggers a migraine as a result.

Certain hormones

According to Dr. Mikhael, fluctuations in female hormone levels, particularly estrogen, play an important role in the pathophysiology of migraine. Around the menstrual period, estrogen levels rapidly drop, causing major changes in the chemical neurotransmitter serotonin, which can trigger a migraine attack.

Fluctuations in female hormone levels could potentially explain why of the more than 39 million Americans who report migraine experiences, 28 million are women, according to the American Migraine Foundation.

Food-related migraine triggers

While last night’s cuisine may have ended in a massive migraine, that doesn’t necessarily mean a specific food is to blame. “You have to be cautious when discussing food triggers,” Dr. Segil says. For example, caffeine may cause a migraine in some people, or cause a migraine in those people at certain times and not others. It can also help improve migraine in some people, or even improve migraines at certain times in people who have previously had caffeine trigger a migraine, he says.

It’s not clear why certain foods trigger migraine in certain people. However, Dr. Mikhael says it could be due to a genetic predisposition that initiates and stimulates a cascade of reactions in the central nervous system that may ultimately lead to a migraine episode.

Despite the everyone-is-different caveat, there are some common food-related migraine triggers, including:

Caffeine

If you’ve felt migraine relief after consuming caffeine, you’re not alone. Caffeine is a double-edged sword when it comes to migraine. For some people, the right dose at the right time can take the edge off. That’s because head pain is associated with swelling blood vessels in the brain. When caffeine comes charging in, the blood vessels constrict, helping to alleviate the pain. But for many others, caffeine withdrawal—which could just mean running out the door before you’ve had your morning latte one day—can lead to some horrendous head pain, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Red wine and other alcoholic beverages

It doesn’t take a night of drinking to trigger a migraine in some people. Even a small amount of alcohol can put you over the edge if you have a history of migraine. The difference between a traditional hangover headache and a migraine from alcohol is the timing. If alcohol is a migraine trigger, you’ll likely notice its effects within a few hours of drinking.¹¹ A hangover headache, on the other hand, generally kicks in the next day. (Cue your go-to greasy breakfast sandwich and a pain reliever.)

That said, people with frequent migraines can also experience a delayed alcohol-induced headache, according to the American Migraine Foundation. Red wine seems to be the biggest migraine culprit, which experts believe is due to its tannins—plant-derived compounds that cause changes in serotonin levels.

Cheese

Wine and cheese might be a winning combo when entertaining, but they can be disastrous if you live with migraine. When it comes to cheese, Dr. Segil says aged cheese causes the most problems because it contains tyramine, a chemical that is thought to trigger migraine by changing blood vessel diameters in your head.

Cured meats

Last on the list is processed meats, such as hot dogs, deli meats, and bacon. These foods contain nitrites, which are preservatives known to dilate blood vessels and trigger head pain and migraines, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

How can understanding my triggers prevent migraine attacks?

If you’ve spent countless hours searching for ways to keep migraines at bay, you’re not alone. While there is no cure for migraine episodes, there are things you can do that may prevent migraines from happening so frequently. The best thing you can do is see your doctor to discuss your treatment options. There are a variety of over-the-counter pain relievers and prescription migraine medications that can help ease your symptoms, and even prevent future attacks. Another thing you can do is to be aware of your personal triggers (like the ones we mentioned above). Here are a few ideas to get you started:

Review your family history: While not necessarily a straightforward preventative strategy, this can provide insight into a possible genetic link to migraine. That way, if you find yourself dealing with what seems like migraine symptoms, you can talk with your doctor and mention your family history.
Start taking notes: Keep a migraine journal and note possible triggers, like food, drinks, exercise, sleep, etc., and then make adjustments. For example, if a specific foods trigger your migraine attacks, try to avoid them as much as possible. If you find that a number of foods seem to trigger your attacks, you may want to consider meeting with a registered dietitian to create a migraine-friendly diet plan.
Consider lifestyle changes: Lifestyle modifications¹² like acupuncture,¹³ increasing exercise (or modifying your routine if exercise is a trigger), dietary changes, tai chi, mindfulness meditation, yoga, and better sleep hygiene may reduce migraine frequency and severity.
Limit or eliminate alcohol and caffeine. The idea of eliminating alcohol or caffeine often sends people into panic mode. However, if limiting your intake can reduce the frequency and severity of migraine episodes, you might still be able to enjoy your favorite morning brew or after-work cocktail. That said, some people need to eliminate caffeine or alcohol altogether.
Stay regular: Sticking to a consistent sleep schedule—try to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day—not skipping meals, and staying hydrated may prevent a migraine from surfacing.

Living with migraines can feel like an uphill battle. While there is no cure for these exhausting episodes, identifying potential triggers can provide you with important clues as to how and why you experience a migraine. It also gives you insight into possible prevention and treatment options. The most important thing to remember? No one knows your migraines as well as you do. So, if something doesn’t feel right, seek help right away. The sooner you act, the faster you’ll feel relief.

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