[00:00]
What happens when your sleep is constantly interrupted and your migraines begin to
[00:05]
spiral out of control because of it? And the hardest part? You don't have a choice.
[00:13]
Welcome to Migraine Heroes, a podcast for people living with chronic migraines with years of pain,
[00:19]
misunderstanding and lack of answers. I'm Diane Ducarme.
[00:24]
I've helped more than a thousand people reduce the burden of migraines and feel more in control.
[00:30]
My mission in life? To help a million people. Each episode brings you grounded insight into
[00:36]
what your body might be asking for and what can truly help. Just to keep you fully supported,
[00:43]
this podcast is educational. For diagnosis or medication, always work with your doctor.
[00:50]
Now, take a breath and let's dive in.
[00:54]
In this episode, you will learn how disrupted sleep actually triggers migraines in your brain
[01:04]
and body so you can stop blaming yourself and start understanding what's happening.
[01:09]
Practical ways to protect your nervous system even when your nights are unpredictable
[01:14]
and a simple daily adjustment that will help your body recover faster from broken sleep cycles.
[01:21]
Stay with me till the end because at the end of this episode, you will have a simple,
[01:26]
realistic tool to protect your brain even if your nights remain unpredictable.
[01:31]
If you're waking up multiple times at night, whether for a crying baby, a snoring partner
[01:37]
or relentless shift work, you may feel like your body is constantly on edge. You try to function
[01:44]
but your brain feels foggy. Your threshold is lower and migraines seem to come out of nowhere.
[01:50]
It's exhausting, it's frustrating and it's oftentimes misunderstood.
[01:54]
From a Western perspective, we now know that migraine is a neurological condition
[01:59]
that involves altered brain excitability and sensory processing. Sleep is going to play
[02:06]
a critical role in regulating this specific system. Research published in the Journal
[02:12]
of Headache and Pain shows that sleep deprivation and fragmentation is going to increase your
[02:18]
cortical excitability, making the brain more sensitive to triggers.
[02:23]
There's a circadian rhythm disruption going on. Your body runs on a circadian rhythm,
[02:29]
sort of a 24-hour internal clock that regulates sleep, hormones and brain function. When
[02:35]
you wake up frequently, when you sleep at irregular times, when you work night shifts,
[02:41]
you disrupt this rhythm. A study in neurology found that irregular sleep patterns significantly
[02:46]
increase migraine frequency, particularly when sleep timing shifts. Sleep is going to affect
[02:53]
key migraine-related chemicals like serotonin, dopamine and melatonin. Serotonin is going to
[02:59]
drop with poor sleep and that's going to link to migraine onset. Dopamine is going to become
[03:04]
dysregulated, which is going to increase sensitivity to stimuli. And melatonin is
[03:09]
going to be reduced, which is going to weaken pain modulation. So here at this stage of the
[03:13]
podcast, I just really want to help you understand the mechanism of what's happening.
[03:19]
Your intuition is probably there. You know that sleep is playing a major role in your
[03:23]
migraine and I really want to make it intellectually possible to comprehend what's
[03:28]
happening. I promise you will get to what to do about it without changing the commitments,
[03:34]
if you can't change them. So part of these explanations, I want to talk about a system
[03:39]
called the glymphatic system. At night, your brain is going to activate a cleaning system
[03:46]
that's called the glymphatic system. And that's going to allow us to clear metabolic
[03:51]
wastes. And so when you have interrupted sleep, there's going to be sort of an incomplete
[03:57]
brain detox. And so according to science, which is a journal, the system is most active during
[04:04]
steep sleep and fragmented sleep reduces its efficiency, potentially contributing to
[04:09]
neuroinflammation, a known migraine driver. And in addition to that, every time you wake suddenly,
[04:15]
your body may activate a mini stress response, a cortical spike, heart rate increase, a
[04:21]
nervous system shifts toward alertness. And over time, this is going to create chronic
[04:26]
hyperarousal, lowering your migraine threshold. There's a line I once came across in a book
[04:33]
called Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker. It sort of stayed with me, it was an analogy he was giving.
[04:38]
Imagine you just had a newborn and the doctor tells you, oh, everything looks perfect, healthy,
[04:43]
strong, all vitals are good, very good, gorgeous baby. Oh, before I leave, yeah, something abnormal
[04:49]
we notice, your baby spends about a third of his time asleep. We're not entirely sure why,
[04:55]
but hey, otherwise, nothing to worry about. And so in that moment, you'd ponder and find that
[05:00]
absurd. You'd assume that the sleep thing must be doing something essential, especially if the
[05:06]
baby's completely healthy, something vital, maybe for learning, maybe for growth, maybe for regulation,
[05:12]
maybe for survival. And yet as adults, we dismiss it so easily. We cut it short, we fragment it,
[05:18]
we treat it as optional and we rush to be on time to meetings, but we tolerate more time on our
[05:24]
phones before our head hits the pillow. But if we spend a third of our life sleeping, it's not by
[05:28]
accident. Sleeping is not empty time. It's active, it's purposeful, it's deeply restorative. And so
[05:34]
that's what we understand from that Western perspective. Now I want to go east for a minute
[05:40]
and I really want to come to a solution because I'm really conscious for having spoken with many
[05:45]
of you that sometimes just night shifts, the baby crying, the partner waking you up, it's just
[05:50]
not an option to dismiss those. Okay, so let's go east. So from a traditional Chinese medicine
[05:55]
perspective, sleep is also not just rest. It's when your body restores its balance. And in the
[06:01]
same way, traditional Chinese medicine has for thousands of years described the body as moving
[06:06]
through precise circadian rhythms long before modern science began mapping biological clock.
[06:12]
And what's fascinating is that Western research is now catching up, confirming that our organs
[06:17]
and system follow time cycles of activity, repair, and detoxification. And so in DCM, there's an organ
[06:23]
clock where each system has a peak window of activity over a 24-hour cycle. So two of the most
[06:31]
critical windows happen at night, the gallbladder, which has its peak window of activity from 11 p.m.
[06:37]
to 1 a.m., and then the liver from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. And these are not passive periods. They're deeply
[06:44]
active phases of restoration. The gallbladder is associated with decision making and cellular
[06:50]
repair, while the liver is central to detoxification, blood regulation, and the smooth flow of energy
[06:55]
throughout the body, also super hyperlinked to your brain. So if you're asleep during these,
[07:01]
your body can fully engage in these processes. But if your sleep is delayed or fragmented
[07:06]
or interrupted, these essential functions are compromised. And from a DCM perspective,
[07:10]
this directly impacts the liver system, which is, again, like I was mentioning, so much strong
[07:15]
connections to the brain, emotions, and therefore conditions, just like migraines. So when your sleep
[07:20]
is disrupted, especially during these windows, it's not just fatigue you're dealing with,
[07:25]
it's a missed opportunity for deep neurological and systemic restoration. And this is where
[07:30]
ancient wisdom and modern science quite limit. Timing matters, and night is not all the same.
[07:37]
So what happens when you know sleep matters deeply, biologically, neurologically, and yet
[07:42]
you don't have control over it? And this is the reality for so many people. I was speaking with
[07:47]
a nurse recently, and she told me how common migraines were among her colleagues. Night shifts
[07:52]
are simply part of the job. She had even calculated almost to the day how long she had left before
[07:59]
retirement. Stopping was not an option. And it's not just healthcare workers. Sometimes you're a
[08:05]
young mother, and your child wakes up at night, and you can't put earplugs or opt out. And sometimes
[08:11]
it's a partner, sometimes it's life. Your sleep is disrupted. You know, it's affecting your migraines,
[08:16]
and yet you can't change the circumstances. And so if that's you, this part is really for you.
[08:22]
In Japan, there is inemori, the idea of being present while resting. So it's culturally accepted
[08:30]
to briefly drift into light sleep in public or at work, not as a failure, but as a sign that you're
[08:38]
fully engaged in life and restoring yourself when needed. And it acknowledges that your body will
[08:43]
take the rest where it can, and that this has value. So I've lived in Asia for several years,
[08:50]
and I traveled extensively across the region, and I found myself taking pictures literally
[08:55]
of people sleeping in the most unexpected places. Not that I kept them neatly stored in albums,
[09:02]
but I can still picture so many of them vividly today. Someone asleep on a tractor in the middle
[09:07]
of a field, a commuter dozing while standing on a packed train, a shopkeeper napping behind a
[09:14]
counter, a construction worker curled up on a pile of materials, or someone resting peacefully on a
[09:21]
squatter at a red light. And at the time, I was amused. I remember wondering, what are they doing?
[09:28]
What are they thinking they're doing? But life can be intense. Early mornings, long commutes,
[09:34]
dense, fast-moving cities. And what I came to understand with time, these were not signs of
[09:39]
carelessness, but moments of restoration. People were simply replenishing their reserves wherever
[09:45]
and whenever they could. And there's something deeply wise in that. In China, there isn't a
[09:51]
direct equivalent word like inemuri, like in Japan. But there's a strong emphasis on midday rest,
[09:58]
especially around what is called the heart time, when lying down briefly is believed to support
[10:03]
circulation, calm the mind. It's part of maintaining balance. And in yogic traditions from
[10:08]
India, so still in Asia, you will find a very close parallel with yoga nidra, often translated
[10:14]
as yogic sleep. It's a guided state where the body is completely at rest, but the mind remains aware.
[10:21]
So physiologically, it closely resembles what we now call NSDR, non-sleep deep rest. And we're
[10:28]
actually rediscovering something that many Eastern traditions have long understood.
[10:33]
Rest is not binary. You don't have to be fully asleep to restore your system. I'll just repeat
[10:40]
that for a minute. You don't have to be fully asleep, so fully have a night of sleep to restore
[10:47]
your system. That's great news. And it's incredibly important if your sleep is disrupted. Even if you
[10:54]
cannot get perfect and interrupted night sleep, these states, whether it's a 15 minute power nap,
[11:00]
a quiet moment with eyes closed, an NSDR moment, or simply lying down and breathing deeply,
[11:06]
can help your brain reset, reduce the load on your nervous system and support your recovery.
[11:13]
For someone dealing with migraines, this can be a powerful reframe. It's not all or nothing.
[11:18]
You're not failing if your sleep is broken. You can still access layers of restoration
[11:24]
throughout the day. And sometimes these small intentional pauses, these moments of
[11:30]
not quite asleep, but deeply not awake, are exactly what your system needs to keep going.
[11:37]
So after taking the time to reflect on this, I'm going to make a simple commitment to myself.
[11:43]
The next day of deep rest, no sleep, just pause whenever I feel the need. Because so often
[11:48]
we're in this constant go, go, go, without interruption, the push through. And yet
[11:54]
giving yourself permission to stop to clear the mind, even briefly, can be incredibly powerful.
[11:59]
It's not about doing more, it's about allowing your system to reset. So this is something I'm
[12:04]
choosing to do and I invite you to do it alongside with me. And remember, every small step you take
[12:12]
moves you closer to freedom. You are powerful, you are resilient,
[12:17]
and you're not alone. Keep rising, My Green Hero.
