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Napping to cope with migraine negatively impacts other sleep habits
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Women who took naps or went to bed earlier to mitigate their migraine pain negatively influenced other sleeping behaviors, according to study data presented at SLEEP.
“Compensatory sleep behaviors ... are often used to cope with headaches. However, it is not known if these coping behaviors lead to subsequent disturbances in nocturnal sleep,” Spencer C. Dawson, PhD, postdoctoral fellow, department of neurology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and colleagues wrote.
Researchers compared daily diaries of 20 women with chronic migraine with diaries of another 20 women of approximately the same age who did not have the condition. The women recorded various data for approximately 1 month.
Dawson and colleagues found that those with migraine napped more frequently (28.54% vs. 7.25% of days, P = .0113), experienced lower subjective sleep efficiency (80.39% vs. 90.98%, P = .0002) and had longer sleep onset latency (29.11 minutes vs. 10.15 minutes, P =.0015) compared with those without headache.
Researchers also noted that among patients with migraine, headache severity foretold taking a nap (P =.0236), taking longer naps (P = .0003) and going to bed earlier on the same day (P = .0171). Napping also predicted longer sleep onset latency (P =.0244) and the earlier bedtime predicted lower subjective sleep efficiency (P = .0038) as well as longer total sleep time (P < .0001) but did not foretell longer sleep onset latency (P = .2815). In addition, the longer total sleep time was tied to lower likelihood of next-day headache (P = .0444).
“These findings provide novel insights into the use of compensatory sleep behaviors to cope with headache pain which could serve as a precipitating factor for comorbid insomnia,” Dawson and colleagues concluded. – by Janel Miller
Reference:
Dawson SC, et al. Does napping for headache relief lead to sleep disturbance at night? Presented at: Sleep 2019; June 8-12, San Antonio.
Disclosures: Healio Primary Care was unable to determine the authors’ relevant financial disclosures prior to publication.