TY - JOUR
T1 - Intensive Mindfulness Meditation Reduces Frequency and Burden of Migraine
T2 - An Unblinded Single-Arm Trial
AU - Goyal, Madhav
AU - Haythornthwaite, Jennifer A.
AU - Jain, Sharat
AU - Peterlin, Barbara Lee
AU - Mehrotra, Megha
AU - Levine, David
AU - Rosenberg, Jason D.
AU - Minges, Mary
AU - Seminowicz, David A.
AU - Ford, Daniel E.
N1 - Funding Information:
This publication was made possible by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) which is funded in part by Grant Number UL1 TR003098 from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It was also supported through the Society of General Internal Medicine Founders Award grant, a KL2 grant (NIH 1KL2RR025006-01), and a T32 grant (NIH/ NHLBI 5 T32 HL007180).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Objectives: Preventing migraine headaches and improving the quality of life for patients with migraine remains a challenge. We hypothesized intensive meditation training would reduce the disease burden of migraine. Method: An unblinded trial was analyzed as a single cohort exposed to a silent 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat that included 100 hr of sitting meditation. Participants with chronic or episodic migraine were enrolled and followed for 1 year. The primary outcome was a change in mean monthly migraine days at 12 months from baseline. Secondary outcomes included headache frequency and intensity, acute medication use, work days missed, home meditation, sleep quality, general health, quality of life, migraine impact, positive and negative affect, perceived stress, mindfulness, and pain catastrophizing. Results: Three hundred people were screened and 58 (19%) agreed to participate and enrolled in the intensive meditation training. Forty-six participants with chronic migraine (≥ 15 headaches/month of which ≥ 8 were migraines) and 12 with episodic migraine (< 15 and ≥ 4 migraines/month) attended and 45 (78%) completed the retreat. At 12 months, the average migraine frequency was reduced by 2.7 days (from 16.6 at baseline) per 28 days (95%CI − 4.3, − 1.3) and headaches by 3.4 (20.1 at baseline) per 28 days (− 4.9, − 1.9). Fifty percent responder rate was 29% for migraine. Acute medication use dropped by an average of 2.2 days (− 3.9, − 0.5) per 28 days, and participants reported 2.3 fewer days (− 4.0, − 0.5) on which they reduced their activity due to migraines. The most striking and promising effects were in several secondary outcomes, including migraine-specific quality of life, pain catastrophizing, and perceived stress. The significant improvements observed immediately following the intervention were sustained at 12 months follow-up. Conclusions: Training in Vipassana meditation via a 10-day retreat may reduce the frequency and burden of migraine. Preregistration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00663585.
AB - Objectives: Preventing migraine headaches and improving the quality of life for patients with migraine remains a challenge. We hypothesized intensive meditation training would reduce the disease burden of migraine. Method: An unblinded trial was analyzed as a single cohort exposed to a silent 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat that included 100 hr of sitting meditation. Participants with chronic or episodic migraine were enrolled and followed for 1 year. The primary outcome was a change in mean monthly migraine days at 12 months from baseline. Secondary outcomes included headache frequency and intensity, acute medication use, work days missed, home meditation, sleep quality, general health, quality of life, migraine impact, positive and negative affect, perceived stress, mindfulness, and pain catastrophizing. Results: Three hundred people were screened and 58 (19%) agreed to participate and enrolled in the intensive meditation training. Forty-six participants with chronic migraine (≥ 15 headaches/month of which ≥ 8 were migraines) and 12 with episodic migraine (< 15 and ≥ 4 migraines/month) attended and 45 (78%) completed the retreat. At 12 months, the average migraine frequency was reduced by 2.7 days (from 16.6 at baseline) per 28 days (95%CI − 4.3, − 1.3) and headaches by 3.4 (20.1 at baseline) per 28 days (− 4.9, − 1.9). Fifty percent responder rate was 29% for migraine. Acute medication use dropped by an average of 2.2 days (− 3.9, − 0.5) per 28 days, and participants reported 2.3 fewer days (− 4.0, − 0.5) on which they reduced their activity due to migraines. The most striking and promising effects were in several secondary outcomes, including migraine-specific quality of life, pain catastrophizing, and perceived stress. The significant improvements observed immediately following the intervention were sustained at 12 months follow-up. Conclusions: Training in Vipassana meditation via a 10-day retreat may reduce the frequency and burden of migraine. Preregistration: ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT00663585.
KW - Behavioral
KW - Chronic
KW - Episodic
KW - Headache
KW - Therapy
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U2 - 10.1007/s12671-023-02073-z
DO - 10.1007/s12671-023-02073-z
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85146758082
SN - 1868-8527
JO - Mindfulness
JF - Mindfulness
ER -