The Most Common Causes of Morning Headaches

Does your head pound, throb, or just ache when you wake up? If so, you know what a morning headache is. Such headaches most commonly happen in people ages 45 to 64, particularly women. The pain they bring can range from mild to severe, and it can even be debilitating. They have many possible causes, and fortunately, treating the cause frequently results in headache-free mornings. If you often have morning headaches, talk with your doctor, who can pinpoint the cause and help you find relief.

You may wake up with a headache for a variety of reasons. Sleep disorders like insomnia and sleep apnea can cause them. So can the position you sleep in, how much you sleep, and what medications you take. Do you grind your teeth when you sleep? Did you drink too much alcohol the night before? Do you sometimes drink too little water and go to bed dehydrated? All of these make the list of possible culprits behind your morning headache.

This condition causes your breathing to stop briefly but repeatedly while you sleep, possibly up to 30 times per hour in severe cases. The result: Your brain gets less oxygen than it needs, you don't sleep well, you snore loudly, and you're tired throughout the day. Up to 30% of people with the condition wake up with a morning headache. It feels like a dull pain pressing on both sides of your head. Several risk factors make sleep apnea-related morning headaches more likely, including obesity, smoking, and sleeping on your back. Morning headaches can be an early warning sign that you've got sleep apnea.

Do you often struggle to fall asleep or stay asleep? If so, insomnia may be to blame for your morning headaches. Research shows that insomnia doubles or even triples your risk of migraines, tension headaches, or chronic daily headaches. Experts don't yet understand why insomnia often causes morning headaches, but treatment can improve your sleep and, likely, your headaches.

Just like sleeping poorly or not enough, oversleeping has been linked to intense morning headaches. You also may have a higher risk of such headaches if you work the overnight shift, frequently have jet lag, or otherwise disrupt your circadian rhythm — what sets your body clock and tells you when to sleep and wake up. Another potential cause: snoring. Studies show that snoring increases your odds of morning headaches. But snorers may not be the only ones to suffer. If you share a bed with a snorer, you might get a morning headache, too.

Up to 1 in 6 adults grind, gnash, or clench their teeth during sleep, a condition called sleep bruxism. A common symptom is morning headaches, including tension headaches and migraine. Bruxism can also cause other symptoms, such as facial pain, tinnitus, earaches, jaw soreness or fatigue, and spasms in the jaw muscles. Over time, the grinding, gnashing, and clenching can damage your teeth. Stress and anxiety, excessive caffeine, alcohol, and poor sleep all boost your chances of bruxism. A custom-made mouth guard at night will protect your teeth, while addressing the cause can ease your headaches.

Your body can't work as well as it should if you don't get enough fluids. In fact, dehydration can be deadly. One warning sign is a headache, which can happen in the morning if you go to bed dehydrated. Experts don't fully understand the connection between headaches and dehydration. It may be due to changes in blood flow around your brain when you drink too little fluid. Snoring, breathing through your mouth while sleeping, and having too much alcohol are some of the things that can lead to dehydration headaches in the morning. Drinking a pint to a quart of water should ease your pain within two hours.

Migraine and tension headaches are among the most common types of morning headaches. Migraine often strikes in the morning due to body processes that take place naturally overnight, such as hormone fluctuations and changes in blood flow. Tension headaches often result in a harsh cycle. Because they impair your sleep, your risk of a headache goes up, making it harder to sleep. Keep a detailed headache journal to help identify patterns and potential headache triggers to avoid. There are also many effective treatments available for both types of headaches.

Over-the-counter painkillers like aspirin and ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) can ease headaches, but be careful: Taking them too often or at too high a dose can trigger medication overuse headaches. Prescription painkillers for migraine can have the same effect. This can lead you to take more medication, creating a cycle of increasingly harsh headaches. Withdrawal from these drugs as you sleep may also bring on a morning headache. Your doctor can help you come up with a plan to stop the cycle and help prevent future headaches. Certain medications can cause headaches as a side effect, such as some drugs for heart disease. Review your medication side effects with your doctor or pharmacist.

Along with other side effects common to hangovers, drinking too much alcohol often results in a brutal headache the next morning. Why? Excessive alcohol can leave you dehydrated, and it also troubles your sleep. Both are frequent culprits of morning headaches. Alcohol can also trigger migraine in some people. Talk to your doctor about the best way to cut back on or stop drinking. If you drink coffee, tea, or other caffeinated beverages each morning, you may get a headache if you miss your daily fix. While this is particularly true for people who down lots of caffeine, those who drink even a single cup of coffee per day can get a headache if they skip it.

Certain health problems may explain your morning headaches. Headaches are often linked with depression and anxiety, for example. They may also be linked to arthritis in your neck. In some cases, high blood pressure (BP) may be to blame. Your BP typically goes down when you sleep. If it doesn't, higher BP in the morning can cause a headache. High pressure in your skull — intracranial hypertension — can also lead to morning headaches. It's rare and typically has no known cause.

You may not need to worry about the occasional morning headache, but you should see a doctor if they happen often, get worse over time, or make your daily life more difficult. Other symptoms that require a doctor's attention include snoring or gasping during your sleep (signs of sleep apnea). Get medical help right away for a headache with any of these warning signs: sudden severity, neck stiffness, fever, nausea or vomiting, confusion, weakness in your arms or legs, double vision, passing out, facial drooping, seizure, or head pain that comes after a head injury.