Gotham Wellness Journals

Why My Migraines Got Worse Before My Period — And What Tracking Finally Showed Me I spent three years thinking my migraines were random. I had tried eliminating caffeine, cutting out wine, avoiding aged cheese, managing my stress better. Some of it helped a little. None of it explained why certain months were completely fine and others were absolutely brutal. It was not until I started tracking everything — including where I was in my cycle — that the pattern finally became impossible to ignore. Almost every severe migraine I had was happening in the same four-day window. Every single month. I had hormonal migraines. I just did not know it yet. What Are Hormonal Migraines? Hormonal migraines are migraines that are directly triggered or worsened by fluctuations in estrogen levels. They are incredibly common — research suggests that up to 60% of women who get migraines notice a connection to their menstrual cycle — but they are frequently misdiagnosed or dismissed because t...

Why You Get Migraines When You Finally Relax — And What I Do About It Now If you have ever made it through a brutal week at work, finally sat down on Friday night, and woken up Saturday morning with a migraine — this post is for you. For years I thought I was just unlucky. Everyone else got to enjoy their weekends. I spent mine in a dark room wondering what I had done wrong. It turns out I hadn't done anything wrong. There is actually a name for what was happening to me. And once I understood it — and started tracking it — everything changed. What Is the Letdown Migraine? The letdown migraine, sometimes called the stress-relief migraine or the weekend migraine, happens when your body shifts from a high-stress state to a low-stress state too quickly. Here is what is actually happening in your body: During a stressful period — a hard week at work, a difficult project, family tension, an emotional stretch — your body releases adrenaline. Adrenaline is a survival hormone....

 30 Days of Migraine Tracking — Here's What I Actually Found I'll be honest with you. When I started tracking my migraines, I didn't expect much. I'd been dealing with them for years. I thought I already knew my triggers. Stress. Bad sleep. Maybe red wine if I was unlucky. I figured writing things down would just confirm what I already knew and I'd move on. That's not what happened. Thirty days in, I had found patterns I never would have guessed. Things I was doing every single day that were quietly making everything worse. And a few things I thought were triggers that turned out to have nothing to do with it at all. Here's exactly what I found — and what changed because of it. What I Tracked Every Day I used the Migraine Tracker & Journal and logged the following every single day whether I had a migraine or not: Sleep time and wake time What I ate and when Water intake Stress level (1-10) Any medications taken Pain level and location if ...

 My Nightly Migraine Routine — What I Do Every Evening to Protect Tomorrow I used to think migraine prevention was all about what happened during the day. Watch what you eat. Stay hydrated. Manage your stress. Get enough sleep. And yes — all of that matters. But what I didn't realize for a long time was that the evening before is often more important than the morning of. The way I wind down, what I track before bed, and the small habits I've built into my nighttime routine have made a bigger difference in my migraine frequency than almost anything else I've tried. Here's exactly what I do every evening — and why each step matters. I Stop Screens by 9:30PM This was the hardest habit to build and the one that made the fastest difference. Blue light from phones and laptops suppresses melatonin, disrupts your sleep cycle, and creates the kind of neurological overstimulation that sets the stage for a migraine the next morning. I didn't believe it until I trac...

  7 Surprising Migraine Triggers I Never Would Have Found Without Tracking (And What I Do Now) I used to wake up with a migraine and have absolutely no idea why. No warning. No obvious cause. Just that familiar pressure building behind my eyes before I even had a chance to start my day. For a long time I blamed stress. Then the weather. Then my diet. I cycled through every explanation I could think of — and nothing ever stuck because I was just guessing. It wasn't until I started actually writing things down that everything changed. Within a few weeks of tracking, patterns I never would have noticed on my own started showing up. And some of them genuinely shocked me. Here are the 7 triggers I discovered — and what I do now when I feel one coming on. Sleeping Too Much on Weekends I always thought more sleep meant fewer migraines. Turns out, oversleeping was one of my biggest triggers. When I started logging my sleep time alongside my migraine days, the pattern was impo...

Why Poor Sleep and Migraines Are More Connected Than You Think If you suffer from migraines, you've probably heard the usual advice — stay hydrated, avoid triggers, manage stress. But there's one factor that doesn't get nearly enough attention: your sleep. The connection between poor sleep and migraines isn't just real — it's one of the most powerful trigger relationships your body has. And most people never even realize it's happening. The Sleep-Migraine Cycle Nobody Talks About Here's what makes this so frustrating: poor sleep triggers migraines, and migraines disrupt sleep. It's a cycle that feeds itself and gets harder to break the longer it goes on. When you don't sleep well your brain becomes more sensitive to pain signals. Your stress hormones rise. Your body's ability to regulate itself drops. All of this creates the perfect environment for a migraine to take hold — sometimes before you even get out of bed. What "Poor Sleep...

Simple daily habits can make a big difference in how often and how badly migraines hit. Here are 6 science-backed habits to start building today. --- If you live with chronic migraines you already know that the pain itself is only part of the problem. The anticipation, the disruption to your day, and the feeling of never knowing when the next one will hit — that's exhausting too. The good news is that small, consistent daily habits can significantly reduce both how often migraines happen and how severe they are when they do. You don't need a complete lifestyle overhaul. You just need to start somewhere. Here are 6 habits worth building. --- 1. PRIORITIZE SLEEP Sleep and migraines have a complicated relationship. Too little sleep is one of the most common migraine triggers — but so is too much sleep. What your brain actually needs is consistency. Try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends. A consistent sleep schedule regulates your body's inter...