Research: Exercise Therapy Helps Migraine and Headache

Physical activity has a clearly positive effect on the intensity, frequency, and duration of individual migraine attacks. This was shown by a study at the University Hospital Kiel, supported by the Deutsche Migräne- und Kopfschmerzgesellschaft (DMKG). "Aerobic endurance exercise in particular — for example sufficiently effective running training — appears especially well suited for this," says Dr. Stephanie Darabaneau, who oversaw the study.

The study compared the effect of jogging versus walking on migraine. Walking was chosen as a moderate activity that involves movement without necessarily increasing fitness level — since prior studies had suggested that improved fitness was key to exercise's benefit for migraine.

Results

Of 52 patients, 28 completed the full 10-week training plan (3x per week, 30 minutes). Among these patients, the jogging group saw migraine days drop by 17.2% and headache hours by 21.8% per month. The walking group saw an average of 1.3 fewer attacks per month through moderate movement alone.

Researchers tracked migraine symptoms for eight weeks before and after training, in patients who had lived with migraine for an average of 20 years. Both groups (jogging and walking) showed a positive effect from exercise on the condition. Walking in particular seemed to positively affect the number of attacks. Whether an increase in fitness level is necessary for this effect remains to be shown by future studies, since the walking group in this study also saw a fitness increase.

Exercise therapy isn't right for every patient — the study's high drop-out rate reflects that. Still, clinical experience from the Munich headache outpatient clinic shows that of all non-drug measures, exercise is the one patients keep up most consistently, even a year later, says Prof. Andreas Straube of the DMKG.

The proposed explanation: endurance exercise is thought to speed the breakdown of stress hormones released under stress, lowering patients' stress hormone levels and, in turn, raising their individual pain threshold.