How Are Sleep Problems and Headaches Related?

• Many people who have headaches also have sleep problems.
• People with headaches are 2 to 8 times more likely to have sleep disorders than people without headaches.
• This link between sleep and headaches is higher for people with chronic headaches (15 days or more per month) than people with episodic headaches (14 days or less per month).

Research on sleep and headaches shows that:

• similar parts of the brain control sleep and pain
• too little or too much sleep can trigger headaches (especially migraines)
• sleep may help stop a headache attack
• poor sleep may change an episodic headache pattern into a chronic one
• people who wake up with headaches may have sleep apnea
• migraine and cluster headaches often happen during a part of the sleep cycle called rapid eye movement (REM) sleep
• people with migraines might have less melatonin than people without migraines
• depression is common in people who have headaches and sleep problems can be a symptom of depression
• both migraine and sleep problems can worsen in perimenopause ​