Why do I wake up with a headache every morning?
They’re called early morning headaches, and they can be worrying to people who experience them with far more frequency than they’d like. Morning headaches can occur for various reasons, and in today’s blog, we are going to explore the many possible reasons you wake up with a headache in front of the head.
Approximately one in thirteen people experience headaches immediately when they wake up in the morning. Experts believe that this can be the result of changes in the body. It is also possible that the pain threshold is lowered in the early morning hours of the day, and this lower pain threshold translates to a headache and other possible body aches when you wake up.
The heightened adrenaline levels during this time of the day may also be a contributing factor if the early morning headaches are frequent enough. Adrenaline has been associated with different kinds of migraine, not just early morning headaches.
Do you frequently wake up with a headache in front of the head?
The number one cause of these headaches is when you miss out on quality sleep. Many disorders arise from chronic lack of sleep, and these early morning headaches are usually a warning sign that you should start fixing your sleep routine and brush up on sleep hygiene more often. On the other hand, people who individually have sleeping disorders may find themselves on the short end of the bargain in the morning – chronically. It has been discovered that people who can’t get sufficient sleep every night are two to eight times more likely to experience mild to debilitating headaches and migraines.
Why do I wake up with headaches?
In addition to poor sleep routines, it is also possible that people who experience headaches in the morning are afflicted by chronic and poorly managed stress. Almost thirty million Americans suffer from a myriad of migraines annually. Early morning headaches, because of their frequency and the timing at which they happen, can affect a person’s functionality when he or she needs to be alert and as functional as possible.
Current medical science shows that the majority of these early morning headaches occur between four AM and nine AM, every morning, and on the dot. Up to fifty percent of headache sufferers state that they have disturbed sleep patterns.
Disturbed sleep or interrupted sleep is a type of health problem that affects how our body progresses through the different phases or stages of sleep. Many people with interrupted sleep are never able to go to the most profound and most important part of sleep progression: deep sleep.
Did you know that missing just one night of sleep can harm your mood, outlook, and functionality? We call this sleep debt, and as your sleep debt accumulates, the body somehow remembers, and there is a negative impact on both the mind and the body.
The hallmark sign of interrupted sleep, apart from headaches, is the inability to focus correctly on anything that you are doing. This becomes a problem when the person with interrupted sleep has to operate machinery or do things like drive. Thousands of road accidents occur every year because people are too sleepy to focus on the road. Motor abilities diminish with lack of sleep, and so does mental focus and acuity.
If a headache awakens you in the middle of the night, a combination of factors may cause you to lose out on precious hours of sleep. It isn’t easy to obtain quality sleep if you keep waking up in the middle of the night.
What factors can be contributing to early morning headaches?
There are a variety of reasons why these headaches are coming about in the first place. We have already discussed stress, lack of quality sleep, etc. Other factors may be affecting you if you feel that the previously mentioned factors do not apply to you.
Insomnia is a condition wherein sleep cycles are broken, resulting in the deprivation of sleep. Insomnia can last for a long time. The most severe cases of insomnia cause people to never fall asleep entirely for years. Insomnia can cause headaches in the morning.
Insomnia does three things that can easily trigger migraines and headaches. First, it keeps up even when you are trying your hardest to fall asleep finally. Second, it will awaken you when you have finally gotten in a few snoozes. And third, it may allow you to fall asleep, but your sleep will be regularly punctuated by dreams and general unrest that will prevent you from ever attaining deep sleep.
Depression can also cause headaches. Clinical depression has been identified as a possible source of early morning headaches. A related condition that can cause the same impact on people is anxiety.
Anxiety disorders are debilitating, profoundly rooted, and far-reaching in their consequences to physical and mental health. If you feel that your anxieties are getting the best of you, you must get some professional help.
Strained neck muscles are the third common cause of headaches. When you sleep in a position that is not ideal for the head, the muscles are going to be bent in a strange angle, or they are going to overcompensate to keep your head stable in the wrong position.
If this takes place, you will end up with a headache. To solve this, you need to change how you sleep, so you don’t have to worry about migraines in the morning. Read up on ideal sleeping postures, and we are sure that you are going to get better sleep and wake up refreshed the next morning sans the headaches.
