FRIDAY, Nov. 14, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Want to avoid migraines? A new study suggests sticking to your boring routine.
Any significant disruption to a person’s daily routine, called a “retaliation” event, is strongly associated with an increased risk of having a migraine attack in the next 12 to 24 hours, researchers reported Nov. 11 in JAMA Network Open.
The researchers said that excessive eating or drinking, staying up late, a stressful accident, unexpected good or bad news, or a sharp change in mood can represent a “surprise” for the body, which prepares it for a migraine the next day.
“Incorporating revenge measurement into migraine diagnostic tools could provide individuals with a more effective and personalized strategy for managing headache risk,” the research team led by Dana Turner, MD, assistant professor of anesthesiology, critical care and pain medicine at Harvard Medical School, concluded.
In fact, the findings support a person-centered approach to treating migraine “that goes beyond fixed lists of potential causes to take into account the unpredictable and context-sensitive nature of daily life.”
In the study, researchers followed 109 people with migraines from April 2021 to December 2024. Participants kept a diary noting their migraine attacks and any possible migraine triggers they encountered.
The research team created an average of each person’s migraine triggers, then looked for days when there was a “sudden” deviation from that average.
In their words, they measured “the unpredictability of everyday experiences and the subsequent onset of migraine attacks.”
The results showed that a sudden event increased a patient’s risk of migraine by 56% within 12 hours and by 88% within 24 hours, after controlling for other factors and differences between people.
“The results of the current study provide evidence that the degree to which an individual’s experiences deviate from his or her usual patterns can be used to determine the risk of migraine in the near future,” the researchers wrote.
Dr. Noah Rosen, director of the Northwell Headache Center in Great Neck, New York, reviewed the results.
“Much of this is consistent with the number of people who fantasize about migraine, which is often hypersensitivity with a reaction to a change in triggers,” he said in a press release.
“Our bodies maintain homeostasis, which is the right amount of food, sleep and water,” Rosen added. “Migraines can in some ways be an alarm system that goes off when any of that is disrupted.”
This may be why only 70% of people with migraines are able to identify specific triggers, he said. They are looking for specific things, not deviation from the norm.
“Revenge would be when something deviates from your usual activities or requires different responses than those that occur in everyday life,” Rosen explained. “Sudden stressful events can include experiences such as traumatic experiences and fights. Unexpected bad news or even good news. Disruption of normal activity due to other events; Things that can interfere with your normal work, school, or activities at home.”
Future studies should look for better ways to track retaliatory events, which could help migraine patients prepare for an impending attack, the researchers said.
More information
The American Migraine Foundation offers more information about the triggers of migraines.
Sources: JAMA Open Network, November 11, 2025; Northwell Health, press release, November 11, 2025
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