I originally became interested in sleep when one of my headache patients with sleep apnea cured her headaches by wearing the CPAP mask. Since then I’ve learned that bad or frequent headaches are always accompanied by abnormal sleep. And if you don’t fix the sleep you’ll never permanently fix the headaches. Most other “cures”may last for a while but they all wear off over time.
Sleep studies on over 1000 of my headache patients all had one thing in common; not enough REM sleep. (Only a few had apnea.) All of my daily headache sufferers also had low vitamin D ( you probably do too). Once I stumbled on the fact that vitamin D affects the brain cells that run REM sleep my headache patients and I proved that the right vitamin D blood level could fix their sleep and their headaches.
Normal sleep is what cures headaches. To get back to normal sleep and no headache, the vitamin D blood level has to be ideal. Please see the RightSleep® Workbook for details. If you are taking vitamin D and you do not know what your blood level is it’s possible that you have headaches now because you are supplementing vitamin D incorrectly. Also, the vitamin D effect on sleep only lasted for two years and then the sleep went bad again despite continuing vitamin D. This is why there is a program called RightSleep® and a Workbook to help you succeed.
So here’s the bad news: It’s not as simple as you or I would like.
Is there good news? Yes! You can still fix your headaches but it takes a little bit more work than just popping vitamin pills.
If you’re interested in getting your sleep fixed and waking without fatigue, pain or a bad mood read more. Go to the Learn section and read everything under that heading; the FAQs, sleep, sleep and vitamins, watch the second video in the videos segment: Why so many headaches?
If you want to know more about the “why”of how headaches are formed go to the Headache section. If you just want them to go away then spend more time learning about sleep and how you can fix your own sleep over time using a specific regimen of vitamins. No prescriptions needed, they’re cheap, they’re at your local pharmacy. But…. you have to pay attention to what you’re doing and you have to learn what your body is trying to tell you.
The “how “of following the RightSleep® method is in the RightSleep® Workbook that you can download from here. It coaches you through an entire year, telling you exactly what to do and when to do it so that you will never have a headache again. It usually only takes one or two months to get your headaches better but if you want to learn how to permanently fix your headaches you need to learn how to keep your sleep normal for the rest of your life.
4 thoughts on “Sleep and Headache”
Dr. Gominak – thanks for your thoughtful research. My Vitamin D level is low (29 after almost a year at 5,000 – 10,000 IU supplement daily; now on 50,000IU 1xWeek). Fortuitously, reading your research comes at a time when I know my Vitamin D levels, and have a means to monitor deep, light, and REM sleep amounts.
I’m curious, has your research discovered an range for REM sleep amounts, either absolute amount or as a percentage of overall sleep?
Dear Neal: I don’t consider myself an expert in that area. I believe the normals that were generated from Stanford in the 60’s-80’s.
Dear Neal: The normal in general has been set by others. Generally 8 hours total 1/2 as deep sleep and 2 hours as slow wave or deep sleep as it’s called on most of the trackers, and 1/2 as REM. So about 2 hours deep sleep 2 hours REM per night.
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