yoga therapy

Hi annequin-harkin,

Yes, I think you'll find many patients here have given yoga a try, with varying results. Like all other treatments, there is nothing that works for everyone, but since some treatments have few side effects such as yoga, they may be very worth trying.

I have written about exercise and Migraine. There was some research re: Thai Chi that was favorable. https://migraine.com/blog/exercise-and-migraine-part-1-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt/ Thai Chi isn't yoga, but it is similar and may be an option for those for whom yoga isn't working.

When I tried Yoga, I found that it was a major trigger for me. I think the majority of problems had to do with movements and poses that put my head equal to or lower than the rest of my body. One might be able to find a way to do Yoga successfully with these triggers by simply eliminating those problem movements/poses. I am no pro however, so during a class couldn't ask for elimination of the harmful poses, so chose not to continue. A yoga class specifically for Migraineurs might actually be a very interesting thing to investigate 😀 My only other caveat would be to add that another reason I chose to quit yoga had to do with the insistence of the teacher during the first class, that my health problems were because I was stressed out and if I eliminated that, all would be right in the world again. We know stress isn't a Migraine trigger, and eliminating this misinformation is important, and I wasn't interested in listening to this every class. There are more open minded and educated instructors, and I highly recommend them over those that have an axe to grind.

Good luck! I'm glad you've found something that seems to be helpful so far 😀

~Ellen

Yoga has helped me immensly for arthritis, but I cannot do yoga during a migraine. It makes it worse. Any physical movement does. I've been doing yoga for over 20 yrs with no noticable difference to migraine either way.