How Weather Can Provoke Headaches

The human body is a unique self-regulating system that is able to maintain the constancy of the internal environment (homeostasis) regardless of slight fluctuations in environmental conditions. Accordingly, a healthy person should not react in any way to changes in atmospheric pressure, humidity, air temperature, magnetic fields, or other external factors.

But nowadays absolutely healthy people are rare, failures in the body’s functions can lead to an increase in weather dependency, which is the body’s response to weather change. People with chronic diseases during the period of changing weather conditions usually suffer from exacerbations, in the majority of situations there is a decrease in working capacity, headaches or migraines, worsening of mood. According to the statistics collected by researchers at the Medical Faculty of the University of Montreal, the number of weather-sensitive people is increasing by 0.7% annually.

How Changing Weather Provokes Appearance of Headaches/Migraines

In many cases headaches or migraines are triggered by changing weather and sudden changes of atmospheric pressure that affect the oxygen content of the blood. The head’s blood vessels react to changes in atmospheric pressure by expansion or constriction. Before the rain, atmospheric pressure decreases, and many people suffer from headaches or migraine in this period. Drops of the environmental temperature are associated with a balance disorder of serotonin and neurotransmitters in the pain centers of the brain. With age, the signs of weather dependency are amplified, which is due to the weakening of the compensatory and protective abilities of the organism and the development of chronic diseases. In winter and autumn, even almost healthy people may suffer from headaches. Gloomy weather, high rainfall and lack of ultraviolet rays quickly exhaust the organism. If a person continues to work hard – his natural biorhythms may be violated, which triggers the appearance of a headache or migraine, and is very typical for residents of large cities.

How to Get Rid of a Headache

The below simple recommendation will help to get rid of a headache, comply with it or reduce its strength. First of all, it is necessary to get rid of the aspects that may contribute to the appearance of pain, which include:

• Over-consumption of coffee, red wine
• Lack of sleep
• Emotional stress

During the change of weather it is necessary to spend more time outdoors, to drink more water, to sleep long enough. Massage of the head and neck zones to get rid of a headache that occurs during weather changes – namely deep massage of the occipital, temporal and frontal zones, neck muscles. Intake of soothing, hypnotic and analgesic drugs can relieve a headache during changing weather, but remember: the abuse of self-administration is unacceptable! In case of headaches or migraines, doctors prescribe drugs to improve cardiac and cerebral circulation. Weather dependency can be decreased and regulated by physical activity, by cold water treatment of the body, by enough rest.

As the weather most often changes in the spring and autumn periods, at these times it is necessary to pay special attention to your body. Self-medication with headache is strictly contraindicated, please consult your physician in case of need. In case of heavy headaches or migraines it is necessary to fill in a ‘headache diary’ to fix the number of attacks, their duration, the factors that triggered them in your opinion. This information will help the doctor to analyze your condition and prescribe the best method to get rid of a headache.