How to Manage Migraines: Finding Triggers, Supporting Your Nervous System, and Building a Prevention Plan
Updated: Oct 1
If you deal with migraines, you already know that “just take something for it” doesn't exactly address the whole problem. I've had them since I was ten and worked closely with a team of doctors for many years trying to make them better. They have stolen a lot of my life, so I 100% get it.
Migraine management can be complicated. For some people, certain foods trigger an attack. For others, stress, hormones, dehydration, poor sleep, muscle tension, or a combination of several factors can push the nervous system past its threshold.
That’s why migraine prevention matters so much. The goal isn't always to find one magical remedy that makes migraines disappear. It's about figuring out what contributes to your migraines, reducing the things you can control, supporting your body before you're already in the middle of an attack, and having effective options available when prevention doesn't cut it.
Start by Looking for Your Migraine Triggers
Food is one place worth investigating, and within the food conversation, we also have to talk about vitamins and minerals. Certain foods and food components are commonly reported as migraine triggers, including things like alcohol, aged cheeses, processed meats, artificial sweeteners, MSG, and other individual sensitivities. Another odd one is folic acid. This is the synthetic version of folate, and so many women I have worked with (including myself) find that they get migraines from multivitamins that have folic acid.
There isn't one universal migraine diet, though. That would make life WAY too simple.
A food that triggers one person's migraine might be completely harmless to someone else.
This is where food sensitivity testing can sometimes be useful as a starting point. Testing shouldn't be treated as an absolute list of foods you can never eat again, but it can help you identify foods or categories worth investigating more closely. From there, an elimination diet can help you determine whether those suspected foods actually affect you.
How an Elimination Diet Can Help
Safety note: If you're considering a significant elimination diet, especially if you have nutritional concerns or a history of disordered eating, working with a qualified healthcare professional or registered dietitian is a much better approach than trying to figure it all out alone.
The basic idea is to temporarily remove suspected trigger foods, allow your system some time without them, and then systematically reintroduce foods while paying attention to your symptoms.
Keeping a migraine journal during this process can be incredibly helpful. Track things like:
What you ate and drank
Sleep quality
Stress levels
Hydration
Hormonal changes
Physical activity
When symptoms started
Migraine severity and duration
Other symptoms you notice
Then reintroduce foods one at a time rather than throwing everything back into the mix at once. If symptoms consistently appear after a particular food is reintroduced, you have more useful information to work with. The point isn't to create an increasingly restrictive diet. It's to gather information.
Other triggers
One of the most common triggers for women, especially, is low magnesium levels. Lights, smells, excessive noise, stress...
When I quit smoking, instead of making the breakthrough migraines better like the doctor thought, it made them substantially worse. I had almost nine months of daily migraines. No neurological changes had occurred. There wasn't any significant hormonal shift. Nothing. Even now, things that didn't used to be triggers, out of nowhere, become triggers.
One of my safe foods recently became a trigger, and I am still devastated by it. It's never a one-and-done thing. I think that's one of the most frustrating aspects for me. You finally get it all figured out and then BOOM, suddenly it's not figured out anymore. Or you think you have a trigger identified, but then when you go to test it, a migraine doesn't happen.
It is SO frustrating!!!
Think about it like this: your nervous system has a threshold. You may be able to handle poor sleep, skipped meals, stress, dehydration, hormonal changes, muscle tension, or a food trigger individually. But pile several of them together, and suddenly your system says, NOPE. WE'RE DONE HERE.
Part of understanding triggers, food or otherwise, is paying attention to your body and your surroundings. It requires a level of self-care that many of us were taught is indulgent. Or selfish. Or any other mean-spirited term we can think of that is thrown at women when they stop centering other people's comfort. Proper self-care is fundamental in caring for migraine triggers.
That might mean eating regularly, staying hydrated, getting consistent sleep, identifying food triggers, managing stress, addressing muscle tension, and supporting your nervous system on a regular basis.
There isn't one perfect prevention strategy because there isn't one perfect migraine pattern.
So what do you do when prevention isn't enough?
Herbal Support for Migraine Management
This is where herbalism can become one piece of a larger migraine-management strategy. I carry a few products specifically formulated around some of the factors that can contribute to migraine symptoms.
Feverfew (Tanacetum parthenium) has a long history of traditional use for headache support and has also been studied for migraine prevention. This formula combines Tanacetum parthenium with Melissa officinalis (lemon balm), bringing together herbs traditionally used to support the nervous system and head.
This is one of those things that requires paying attention to your system because it really does need to be used at the first sign. For me, it's extreme exhaustion and a burning scalp. I know that the second those two are present at the same time, I need to jump into fix-it mode. I also know my body well enough to know that three to four days before my cycle starts, if I combine this with Curcuma Longa, I can usually avoid the migraine.
Tension and tightness through the neck and shoulders can be part of the picture for some people, particularly when stress, posture, or prolonged muscle tension are involved. Muscle Essentials is a topical roller designed to make application easy, especially around areas like the neck and shoulders. The goal is to support relaxation of tense muscles when you feel that tension beginning to build.
Stress, sensory overload, poor sleep, emotional strain, and chronic tension can all influence how your body responds to everything else going on around you. Nervous System Essentials is formulated to provide calming nervous-system support. This isn't about knocking your nervous system unconscious. It's about giving your body some support when it needs help settling back toward a more regulated state. Stress can be a huge factor in migraines, so giving your body extra love can be a huge dose of prevention.
And Yes, You Can Still Use Modern Medicine
Let's talk about something that gets weirdly controversial in natural wellness spaces.
Using prescription medication does not mean you failed at natural remedies.
If you have an emergency migraine medication such as Ubrelvy (ubrogepant), or another medication prescribed by your healthcare provider, having it available doesn't invalidate everything else you're doing. We don't have to choose between “natural” and “modern medicine” as though one side is inherently good and the other is inherently bad. Sometimes you need the damn prescription.
You can work on identifying food triggers. You can improve your sleep. You can support your nervous system. You can use herbs. You can work on muscle tension. You can stay hydrated and eat regularly.
And you can still take the medication when your migraine decides to kick down the door anyway.
The intersection of holistic wellness and modern medicine is my favorite part of what I do. Plants can be incredibly valuable tools, but sometimes you just need more—and modern medicine has some pretty damn impressive tools.
What About All Those Other Migraine Remedies?
You've probably heard every migraine remedy under the sun.
Put your feet in hot water.
Put peppermint essential oil on your temples.
Use an ice pack on your head.
Use heat on your neck.
Drink more water.
Drink caffeine.
Don't drink caffeine.
Jump up and down five times on your hands while holding your left nostril shut
Ok, maybe that isn't one, but sometimes these recommendations get a little wild! Some people swear by these things, and if something is safe for you and genuinely helps, I say do it.
Peppermint essential oil, for example, has some evidence behind topical use for tension-type headaches, although that doesn't mean it works for every migraine or every person, but extended, repeated use can cause sensitization to happen.
Heat or cold may also provide temporary comfort for some people. I know that when one hits me full on, I have a sock with rice in it that even my four-year-old at this point knows to grab.
The important thing is to think of these as tools, not cures. Your migraine management plan doesn't have to consist of one single intervention. It has to be a toolbox. Migraines aren't just a headache; they are a full-on neurologic event. You get to have an entire arsenal behind you to help support your body.
Build a Migraine Plan That Actually Fits Your Body
Managing migraines isn't about finding the one perfect remedy.
It's about paying attention.
What happens before your migraines? What did you eat? How did you sleep? Were you dehydrated? Were you stressed? Were your shoulders sitting around your ears all day? Are there hormonal patterns? Are there foods that consistently seem to make things worse?
Start collecting the information.
Use an elimination diet when appropriate to investigate potential food triggers. Build habits that support prevention. Consider herbal and topical support as part of your overall strategy. And work with your healthcare provider when prescription treatment is appropriate.
You don't have to pick a side.
You can use the wisdom we've gathered from plants and the ridiculously cool things modern medicine has figured out. Because the goal isn't to prove that you can manage everything naturally.
The goal is to have fewer miserable days and more days where your body behaves itself.
With love,
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