A NEW study has identified two indicators of a migraine attack.

“The major finding from this study was that changes in sleep quality and energy on the prior day were related to incident headache in the next day,” said Dr. Kathleen Merikangas, principal investigator of the study that published Wednesday in the journal Neurology.

Merikangas, chief of the genetic epidemiology research branch in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institute of Mental Health, the United States, and her colleagues used electronic diaries to track the behaviors and symptoms of 477 people over a two-week period, according to the study.

The study team found that sleep quality and energy were important indicators of a migraine attack on the following day. Those who had bad sleep quality and low energy one day were more likely to have migraines the next morning, the data showed.

The study points to the importance of your circadian rhythm — which regulates your cycles of sleep and wakefulness — in how headaches manifest.

Merikangas said, “Behavioral interventions, such as going to sleep to offset it … may be able to prevent a migraine attack.”

A migraine attack isn’t just a headache. Warning signs such as fatigue, neck pain and sleep disturbance may be early symptoms of an attack — not only a trigger of one, he added.

As well as monitoring sleep, exercise and diet, Merikangas suggests finding a way to monitor stress to be able to track the indicators of a migraine.(SD-Agencies)