Could Light Therapy Help Migraine Sufferers?

Experts think so! Light sensitivity – or photophobia – is a known symptom of migraine pain. That’s why so many migraine sufferers need to be in a dark room when a headache strikes. Well, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston wanted to see which light spectrums made the pain worse – and if any made it better. So they exposed migraine patients to different colors of light. They found that blue light made headache pain worse… but a narrow spectrum of low-intensity green light significantly reduced light sensitivity and head pain. And since 80% of migraine attacks are connected to photophobia, this is huge news for sufferers.

That’s because light travels through the retina and into the pain center of the brain. That means anything from a bright room to a tablet computer can make the pain even worse. And now that we know blue light makes migraines worse – and that’s the light emitted from everything from regular light bulbs to your smartphone – that can help migraine sufferers know what to avoid. And researchers are now trying to develop an affordable light bulb that only emits narrow-band green light, at low intensity, as well as sunglasses that block all but the narrow band of green light.