Migraine

After 2 yoga classes, practicing the sequence below in reverse order, the students have shared their feedback.

Sequence:

1: Monday Practice

Asana: Janu Sirsasana, Paschimottanasana, Halasana, Setu Bandha Sarvangasana, Viparita Karani.

Pranayama: Surya Bhedana, Chandra Bhedana.

2: Thursday Practice

Asana: Halasana, Setu Bandha Sarvangasana, Viparita Karani, Janu Sirsasana, Paschimottanasana.

Pranayama: Surya Bhedana, Chandra Bhedana, Brahmari.

Bronwyn
I have always suffered from migraines, but after crashing my bike hard enough to split my carbon fiber bike, break my jaw, nose and cheekbone, and crack my eye socket, I started to have vestibular migraines every day, which meant I was having migraines with dizziness and suffered from vertigo.
I stupidly tried my hardest to ignore all this to live life as normally as I could. 

Of course this meant my migraines got worse. 

In the end I decided to trust my team of yoga teachers, occupational therapists,
physiotherapists, psychiatrists, neurologists. 

They were all saying essentially the same thing, but the yoga teachers offered something physical and practical that I could do to change my health.
The asanas Tessa Meek (Wellington Yoga Centre) initially assigned were supported, with my spine touching the ground or resting on supports. It was the only way I could relax. 

Setu Bandha Sarvangasana on a yoga bench, my arms supported by bolsters, with sandbags on my thighs and on the front of my shoulders. Supta Virasana, again sandbags on my thighs.
Whatever the asana was, spatially I could feel where I was, and with the weights I was grounded.
After a long while I progressed to Halasana, draped over a halasana box with my eyes bandaged. Basically I walked into the yoga studio, set up halasana, and stayed there for most of the class. I can’t even begin to tell you how that pose changed my life. There was a release and a space that allowed the healing to begin.
As my body healed, became stronger, I started more inversions. Hanging in a pelvic sling, hanging over a trestler, Sirsasana head stand stool. Over time I started to put some weight on my skull in the inversions. I can’t really explain it, but having weight on my skull feels really different from an inversion without weight. I can only explain it by saying my brain is happier with the weight.

A couple of years into my injury, I noticed that if I could do Sirsasana, and Salamba Sarvangasana every day I didn’t have the panic attacks and migraines that had been happening since the accident.
A couple of years ago I suffered a partially prolapsed uterus and began doing some variation of supported shoulder stand twice a day. This was great for my reproductive organs, but it was also fantastic for my migraines in that I’ve barely had a migraine since I started doing this.

This is ten years of work of reducing my migraines to almost nothing. If I get a precursor to one, my body is pretty good at telling me what to do, which tends to be either Supta Padangusthasana II (top leg resting on a wall), spike work, or Setu Bandha Sarvangasana. 

Sometimes I just have to get myself in a dark room and ride it out.

Michael 

I have not had migraine for years attribute the change to frequent Osteopathic treatments and daily yoga schedule!  

Triggers for myself. ie lack sleep not eating enough with exercise.

Catherine - Osteopath

I've treated migraine for years successfully, I explain it to patients as a pie graph of causation, varying with each individual. 

Slices include: stress, certain foods (eg: chocolate, oranges), hormonal, and for me hopefully the biggest slice is structural, targeting the cervico thoracic area, therefore postural influence is involved.

 This is due the C/T being a critical area influencing circulation to the head, via neural, largely through the autonomic system, controlling circulation via expanding/contracting of blood vessels.  So physical compression of the area , compressing the blood vessels which wind their way through the muscles and facia, coupled with circulatory/neural components. (Of course other parts above and below are of greater or lesser importance.)

This is why the spike work is so important. 

Jana

A general observation: I have definitely observed that I hold my head a lot—and quite often unnecessarily. Recently, I have started to always go for head support in the seated forward bends to take the tension out of my neck and learn to relax this area. With standing forward bends, I currently prefer to work without head support, reminding myself to let go and enjoy the elongation that comes with letting gravity do its job.

Monday Before class, I felt a little bit of a headache. During class, I felt fine overall and wasn’t noticing the headache. The practice seemed to take some of the intensity away, and the relief lasted for a short while afterward.

Thursday Overall, I was feeling worse to start with on Thursday. I had a mild, lingering headache that had lasted for about five days by then, and I felt some nausea in the morning. In some ways, it is hard to compare the sessions because the starting points were so different. The headache never developed into a full-blown migraine, though it also didn’t really improve. So, while I initially thought the order didn't work, it might actually have worked in some way. Who knows—without the practice, I might have experienced a full migraine.

One asana stood out, though. The supported Setu Bandha Sarvangasana felt mostly good. Maybe I should have increased the height of my support, as it felt like a little too much work to keep the pelvis in a good position for my lower back. I think, in some way, I need to take the strain of working hard out of the pose. It felt fine while I was in it, but after coming out of the asana and going upright again, there was a strong reaction, and I felt quite a bit of pain in my head.

This ties into a general observation for me: inversions feel good while doing them, but coming upright afterward usually doesn't. Though this time, it felt like a bit more than usual.

I feel the Monday order is better for me, as I generally find that Viparita Karani is a very good pose to finish with.