Massage Away that Migraine

By Christine Spehar

Headache sufferers—especially those with migraines—need lots of options for finding relief. Now you can add bodywork as a viable alternative to analgesics. The August 2006 issue of Annals of Behavioral Medicine found that migraine patients who received weekly massages reduced migraine frequency and improved sleep quality.

But giving yourself a five-minute neck rub might not do the trick. "The massage protocol that we used in the study was specifically developed by a trained therapist for migraine sufferers. It is based on the principles of neuromuscular therapy and focuses on muscles of the upper back, neck, and head," says Sheleigh Lawler, a research fellow in the school of population health at the University of Queensland and coauthor of the study. But you needn‘t fly to Australia to find relief. "A person should be able to go to any well-trained therapist to get a migraine-specific massage," says Lawler.