I Tried Biofeedback for Migraine — Here’s What I Learned

Biofeedback is a therapeutic method for managing migraine that focuses on reducing stress by learning how to regulate the body’s processes.

Migraine is a debilitating neurological condition that can come with an array of symptoms. These symptoms may include:

• intense head pain
• nausea
• vomiting
• dizziness
• light and sound sensitivity

Migraine can be episodic (fewer than 15 days of migraine symptoms a month) or chronic (15 or more days a month of migraine-type symptoms).

In the migraine community, we often talk about the things (foods, environmental factors, bodily processes) that can trigger a migraine attack.

Identifying and managing triggers can help you reduce the frequency and severity of your attacks. However, migraine is a neurological disease. This means that the attacks are not our fault. We can learn to manage some of our triggers, but attacks will sometimes occur no matter what we do.

Migraine can be managed with a number of different treatments including:

• lifestyle changes like exercise, stress reduction, proper sleep, hydration
• over-the-counter and prescription medications
• vitamins, supplements, and other nutritional changes

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Stress and migraine

There are also other therapeutic options for migraine management that have been receiving more attention in recent years. Some of these include cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), meditation, massage, and biofeedback.

These options tend to focus on reducing a common migraine trigger: stress.

If you live with migraine, you’ve probably heard comments along the lines of, “You’re just stressed, you need to learn to relax.”

Being told to relax is probably one of the least relaxing things ever!

While stress can be a big trigger for migraine attacks, reducing stress and relaxing more are skills that can be practiced and learned.

What is biofeedback

Biofeedback is a therapy that can help people learn to control their bodily responses like their heart rate, breathing, and muscle relaxation.

Biofeedback can help us learn to reduce stress and relax the body when navigating the pain we feel during a migraine attack. The American Migraine Foundation estimates that successful biofeedback training can lead to as high as a 45–60% reduction in migraine severity and frequency.

Is biofeedback recommended by headache specialists?

The American Headache Society Consensus Statement stated that biobehavioral therapies like biofeedback as well as CBT, mindfulness-based therapies, acceptance and commitment therapy, and relaxation therapies, may be effective for both preventive and acute migraine treatment.

Other studies have also supported the statement that biofeedback can be effective in the prevention of migraine attacks.

There are different types of biofeedback available. Temperature biofeedback training for example involves learning to control your body temperature over the course of several weeks.

Electromyography (EMG) biofeedback uses sensors that are placed on the forehead and neck to monitor muscle tension and effective relaxation.

In recent years, biofeedback has become more accessible through apps on smartphones. Instead of using external sensors, these apps monitor your pulse through the phone’s camera and your respiration through the front-facing camera.

Using these techniques, the user can play various games to better learn how to control their heart rate. Some of these apps also provide guided meditations you can listen to while trying to manage your respiration rate.

My experience with biofeedback for migraine management

The first time that biofeedback was suggested to me was in the early 2000s. My neurologist at the time referred me to a biofeedback therapist. There were very few available within a 50-mile area of my home. At the time, I was having debilitating daily migraine symptoms which made doctor’s visits extremely difficult.

I also had two small children, and I was home with them all day.

When I did finally make it to see the therapist, our first meeting didn’t go well and I probably gave up on it too quickly. I didn’t feel like I learned anything new at that first meeting and the therapist’s style was not a good fit for me. I ended up not following up.

Fast forward to a few years ago when I had the opportunity to try biofeedback through a mobile app. I had already learned how to use guided meditation, and this form of biofeedback felt very similar to what I had learned with meditation.

My migraine attacks were pretty well controlled (though still chronic) by the time I tried biofeedback again. I was able to learn how to control my breathing to reduce my heart rate. This in turn helped to reduce my overall pain levels during an attack.

While I’m not sure it helped reduce the frequency of my attacks, practicing biofeedback did lessen the pain intensity I experienced during attacks.

Also, like many people, stress is one of my biggest migraine triggers and often contributes to debilitating attacks. Using biofeedback when I feel my stress levels rise has helped me to reduce the risk of an attack coming on.

Limitations to biofeedback

Just like any migraine treatment, biofeedback doesn’t work for everyone. The breathwork that is required for biofeedback to be effective can be off-putting for some. I know when I first started meditation, I felt almost like I was going to hyperventilate by thinking about my breath too much.

Eventually, I learned to relax through this feeling, but if it causes anxiety for you, it might not be the treatment option.

Having a biofeedback therapist to guide you can be beneficial. They can help you overcome problems or limitations and answer your questions as you learn the new skills of biofeedback. When I was using the mobile app, I had to try to figure out on my own what I needed to do to get better results.

The takeaway

For me, I feel like guided meditation helps me as much, if not more, than biofeedback. However, I do appreciate both methods because they function similarly to each other.

The great thing about these types of therapies is that you can try them on your own for free YouTube and different mobile apps have easily accessible guided meditations and biofeedback training videos. These are safe and easy ways to test if this sort of migraine management strategy could potentially help you.