6 simple strategies to help you avoid migraines

Migraines can be downright crippling. But there are a few preventative measures that you can try to avoid the downward spiral before it starts. Here's just a few:

• Common migraine causes include certain foods, some medications, stress, changes in sleeping patterns and cigarette smoke.
• Common medication culprits include some antidepressants, bronchodilators, contraceptives and diet pills.
• Food and drink triggers include caffeine, alcohol, aged cheese, processed meats, dairy foods, many tropical fruits, most dried fruits, fresh yeast breads and aspartame.

• Everyone's triggers are different. Keeping a headache diary can help you determine yours.
• Record when you get a migraine and what you were taking, eating, drinking, feeling and doing for the 24 hours before the pain began.

• Taking painkillers of any kind more than twice a week can set you up for trouble.
• These drugs constrict swollen blood vessels, which makes your head feel better. But when they wear off, blood vessels swell again and you could get a migraine as a result.
• End the cycle by stopping your pain medications. It will probably hurt at first, but experts say you'll start feeling better after a week to 10 days.

• Drastically reducing the amount of fat you eat could cut the number of migraines you have by 40 percent.
• Researchers suspect that eating less fat improves the flexibility of blood vessels so they expand and contract more easily.
• They also discovered that patients who replace fat with carbohydrate-rich foods, like bread and pasta, raise their levels of  serotonin, linked to lower migraine risk.
• In some studies, good fats reduced the frequency of migraines.
• If you're not ready to go low-fat, aim to get your fat from fatty fish, canola or olive oil, walnuts and flaxseed.

• When 245 people who got migraines took a butterbur product, 68 percent saw the number of migraines they experienced drop by at least 50 percent.
• Butterbur extract may help by quieting spasms in blood vessel walls, soothing inflammation, or both.
• People in the same study who took 75 milligrams of butterbur extract a day got the most relief.
• Make sure you use a commercial product free of harmful compounds called pyrrolizidine alkaloids.

• You can relax with yoga, meditation, deep breathing or any other therapy that helps relieve tension.
• In one promising study from India, 72 migraine sufferers who practiced yoga for an hour five days a week reduced the frequency and intensity of their migraine attacks.

Although no one yet knows how they are caused, people generally agree that they want relief. The good news is that relief is possible with a change in diet and lifestyle.