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Natural migraine remedies can help to ease the pain of an attack but the best way to deal with migraines is to prevent them occurring in the first place. By identifying your triggers and avoiding them you can reduce the frequency of attacks. There are many environmental and food factors that have been identified as possible triggers so identifying your trigger may not be easy. Some migraine triggers are detailed below as well as a method to identify any foods that may be triggering your attacks.

1. Stress is a common cause of migraines. Attacks do not usually occur during a stressful period but once the stress is relieved. A well known pattern is to suffer a migraine attack at the weekend when stress from work is relieved.

2. Sleep disturbances and insomnia can cause migraines. This includes irregular sleep patterns, not getting enough sleep or even over sleeping.

3. Hormone changes associated with the menstrual cycle in women are common causes of migraines.

4. Stimulations such as bright lights, flashing lights or eye strain are all possible migraine triggers. Strong scents, cigarette smoke including second hand smoke can also cause an attack.

5. Changes in weather, altitude, humidity and temperature are all possible triggers.

6. Vigorous exercise can be trigger.

7. Some OTC medications especially caffeine containing pain relievers can cause migraines.

8. Some foods have a reputation for triggering migraines including chocolate, cheese, caffeine and alcohol. The food additive mono sodium glutamate is a very common trigger and is often found in take aways especially Chinese or Indian dishes.

9. The artificial sweetener aspartame has been found to cause migraines and is a common ingredient in diet foods.

Finding Your Migraine Trigger

With the huge number of triggers identified as possible causes of a migraine attack finding your trigger is not going to be easy! You may already have an idea of what causes the attacks but there may be more than one trigger which will complicate the picture even more. A good way to find your trigger(s) is to keep a diary of all the food you eat, any symptoms you notice and environmental factors. Buy a large ‘page a day diary’ rule each page into four sections and note down the time, foods eaten, environmental factors and symptoms. Environmental factors could include the temperature, the weather, presence of smokers, bright lights etc. Also note down each morning how you slept the night before.

It will take some time to start to see patterns in your migraine attacks. A food that seems to be associated with migraines at least three times should be eliminated from the diet to see if the migraine frequency decreases. Only eliminate one food at one time to avoid confusion.

As you can see finding your triggers is not going to occur overnight and needs persistence and patience but is well worth the effort if you can eliminate or at least decrease the frequency or the severity of your attacks.