Why sleep regularity is important

Lack of sleep is a common migraine trigger. A less common trigger is getting too much sleep. I always recommend that patients try to go to sleep at the same time and get up at the same time. Even on weekends. Instead of sleeping in on the weekend, take a 30-minute nap in the afternoon.

A new study by Australian researchers published in Neurology reports another important reason for sleep regularity. This was a large and rigorous study involving 88,094 UK subjects. All subjects wore an accelerometer that detected their sleep patterns. The researchers controlled for variables that are known to predispose to dementia –  age, sex, ethnicity, material deprivation, retirement status, current shift work status, household income, highest level of education, smoking status, use of sedative, antidepressant, or antipsychotic medication, and genetics (APOE ?4 carrier status).

They “identified a nonlinear relationship between day-to-day sleep regularity and dementia risk such that dementia rates were highest in those with the most irregular sleep, dipped as sleep regularity approached the median, and then marginally increased at the highest estimates of sleep regularity.” In subjects who underwent brain MRI (n = 15,263), gray matter and hippocampal volume (area of the brain critical to memory) similarly tended to be lowest at the extremes of the sleep regularity index. This was surprising – subjects whose sleep patterns were extremely chaotic did slightly better than those with moderately irregular sleep.

Other sleep disorders that can contribute to migraines and increase the risk of dementia are restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea, and sleeping too much or not enough.