You may recognise this: the working week was a rollercoaster of deadlines, household to-dos and social obligations. Just when you wake up on Saturday morning and think “finally, some rest”… you get a migraine. That’s no coincidence.
This phenomenon, known as “let-down migraine” or “weekend migraine”, happens when your body switches from overdrive to relaxation. During busy days, your stress system keeps you going. Cortisol, your stress hormone, acts as a kind of protective buffer that helps you keep functioning, even while all sorts of things build up in your system: oxidative stress, overactive neurotransmitters, biochemical waste that hasn’t been cleared.
But when you suddenly relax, the level of cortisol, your main stress hormone, drops quickly. At first sight that seems good, but this sudden drop also means that the “buffer” that kept your body switched on suddenly falls away. What follows is a kind of catch-up: your body activates repair processes that were put off earlier. Think of clearing waste products and repairing cellular damage.
If your repair capacity is weakened, for example by exhaustion, deficiencies or chronic strain, that catch-up doesn’t run smoothly. The immune system then goes into overdrive, which can lead to neuroinflammation: an inflammatory response in the nervous system in which immune cells in the brain (such as microglia) are activated and inflammatory substances (cytokines) are released.
This neuroinflammation uses an enormous amount of energy. Your brain already has a high energy need at rest, but during an inflammatory response like this, those reserves are drawn on even faster. Neurons, the cells responsible for communication in your brain, get into trouble as a result: they don’t get enough fuel, their electrolyte balance is disturbed, and their excitation threshold drops. The result? An overloaded brain that loses control… and migraine as an alarm signal.
Who gets let-down migraine?
Not everyone is susceptible to let-down migraine. But if you are someone who is always “on”, who finds it hard to let go, sets high standards for yourself, or has been running on willpower and adrenaline for months, there’s a good chance your brain recognises this state. Your body is in a chronic state of readiness, in which relaxation no longer feels safe or familiar. What was once supposed to bring rest now becomes a trigger.
What can you do about it?
At the Functional Migraine Clinic, we look for the building blocks of your migraine.
Let-down migraine is a sign that you are less able to stay close to yourself. You find it hard to tune in to yourself and to restore your own balance in time, and your repair capacity is lowered.
An integrative approach looks at your brain, body, lifestyle and personality to find the right way to bring your system back into balance.
Do you recognise yourself in this pattern? Do the Building Block Analysis and find out what lies behind your triggers.
