Do You Get Headaches Only on Weekends? Here’s What Your Body May Be Reacting To

Why do headaches seem to strike more often on weekends? Changes in sleep timing, caffeine intake, hydration and daily routines may play a role. Here’s what could be behind weekend headaches.

For most people, the weekend is meant to be a time to rest and relax, sleep for more periods and get rid of the stress of work. Still unexpectedly, some people find themselves getting up in the mornings on Saturday or Sunday with a headache or migraine.

Why does this occur?

The issue may not be the weekend itself, but the sudden switch in your routine. Sleeping in can precipitate a headache. Following a busy week, it is provocative to sleep several hours longer on weekends. Yet, a significant change in your routine sleeping and waking time can disturb the body's internal clock. Both too little sleep and too much sleep can cause migraine attacks in vulnerable people.

The brain usually functions better if the uniform schedule is planned. Going to sleep and getting up in the morning at the same time roughly every day even during weekends may help reduce headache or migraine attacks.

Your morning bed coffee may contribute to the story. For people who drink coffee or tea regularly, caffeine can have a shocking effect. During the working week, one may have their usual cup of tea or coffee at 7 or 8 am. But on weekends, you may wake up late and delay it or miss it completely.

If your body is used to daily caffeine, an unexpected change or reduction can cause a caffeine withdrawal headache. In contrast, excessive caffeine can also lead to repeated headaches in some people. The amount of tea or coffee that triggers symptoms differs from person to person.

The solution is not to stop caffeine permanently. Instead, one needs to stay away from major shifts in your daily intake. If you want to reduce caffeine, doing so slowly is advisable rather than stopping suddenly.

Relaxing can occasionally trigger a migraine

This phenomenon is called a let-down headache. It occurs due to alteration in stress hormones. These are chemicals cortisol and adrenaline released during stress. Even chronic stress causes imbalance in release of oestrogen and progesterone in females.

During a stressful week the body remains in a state of heightened stress. When Friday evening arrives and the stress suddenly disappears, that rapid alteration may provoke a migraine attack in some individuals. This is why a headache can begin when you finally start relaxing.

What about meals and hydration during the weekend?

On the weekend routines are altered that are delayed breakfast, missing breakfast, behind scheduled lunches, more outdoor events, and drinking less water. Fasting and dehydration are well-recognised triggers to headaches and can lower the threshold for migraine attacks.

How can you make your weekend headache friendly?

1. Try to maintain your weekend routine similarly to your weekday routine.
2. Maintain a fairly compatible sleep and wake time.
3. Keep caffeine intake the same rather than increasing or stopping it all of a sudden.
4. Eat meals at uniform intervals.
5. Drink an ample amount of water throughout the day preferably 3 litres/ day in week days and weekend.
6. Find time for relaxation throughout the week rather than expecting to relax at the weekend.
7. Maintaining a headache diary to recognize your personal triggers as triggers may not be the same for everyone.
8. One needs to be sure that there is no single trigger for everyone. Headaches can occur from a mixture of triggers that include sleep, stressful conditions, caffeine, certain meals, skipping meals, routine change, hydration and also individual sensitivity.
9. If your headaches are frequent, and becoming more or severe as compared to previous headaches that are interfering with your daily activities of life, then it is better to discuss with a neurologist rather than using repeated doses of painkillers. As medication overuse can itself cause headaches.
10. And if a headache attack is severe, sudden thunderclap headache or is associated by weakness, sore feeling in one half of the body and difficulty in speaking, confusion, seizures, vision loss, or transient visual blurring, associated fever all require urgent medical attention.

Take home: Following a uniform routine habit with proper sleep of 6 hours, relaxation, avoiding triggers and following a similar pattern of routine week days and weekends helps to prevent headache attacks.

-This article is authored by - Dr. Sandhya Manorenj, Senior Consultant, Department of Neurology, KIMSHEALTH Thiruvananthapuram