One thing I haven’t seen mentioned: do you snore or have trouble sleeping?
If we assume that it’s some external factor, and that this factor doesn’t always give you a headache, the possible signal/noise of the data goes right down the drain.
No one has told me I snore. I can reliably get to sleep each night; I often wake up, usually to go to the bathroom, sometimes when I have an unusually bad headache. In the former case I can go right back to sleep. In the latter I pop ibuprofen and toss and turn and think angry thoughts and then go back to sleep.
Varies—I don’t have a fixed bedtime or time when I need to get up, although I do have to stay roughly compatible with the person I share a bed with when he’s home—but I usually spend about 10 hours between going to bed and getting up, some unclear amount of which is spent falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night for assorted reasons and getting back to sleep, and lounging semi-conscious enjoying the comfiness before I finally properly wake up.
I know that when I’m sleep deprived, trying to do a heavy amount of thinking or engaging in stressful activities can make me feel more pained than it would otherwise. Even if your headaches aren’t related to that, it might be a good idea to try to narrow down more precisely how much of the night you’re usually asleep/dreaming in case you are suffering sleep deprivation. However, from your description, The evidence of you being/not being sleep deprived is mixed.
Evidence which indicates you’re probably NOT sleep deprived:
You spend 10 hours between going to bed and waking up.
You enjoy lounging in bed and rise slowly as opposed to being forced awake.
Evidence which would seem to indicate you probably ARE sleep deprived:
You don’t have a fixed bedtime.
You wake up multiple times in the night, and in some cases have time to think a substantial amount before going back to sleep.
Also, I don’t think I would normally get sleep deprivation headaches in the middle of the night if I was still in bed.
I would say this is probably not the cause of your headaches, but that it might be worth trying to look into your sleep cycle if nothing else pans out.
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned: do you snore or have trouble sleeping?
If we assume that it’s some external factor, and that this factor doesn’t always give you a headache, the possible signal/noise of the data goes right down the drain.
No one has told me I snore. I can reliably get to sleep each night; I often wake up, usually to go to the bathroom, sometimes when I have an unusually bad headache. In the former case I can go right back to sleep. In the latter I pop ibuprofen and toss and turn and think angry thoughts and then go back to sleep.
How many hours of sleep do you usually get in a night?
Varies—I don’t have a fixed bedtime or time when I need to get up, although I do have to stay roughly compatible with the person I share a bed with when he’s home—but I usually spend about 10 hours between going to bed and getting up, some unclear amount of which is spent falling asleep, waking up in the middle of the night for assorted reasons and getting back to sleep, and lounging semi-conscious enjoying the comfiness before I finally properly wake up.
I know that when I’m sleep deprived, trying to do a heavy amount of thinking or engaging in stressful activities can make me feel more pained than it would otherwise. Even if your headaches aren’t related to that, it might be a good idea to try to narrow down more precisely how much of the night you’re usually asleep/dreaming in case you are suffering sleep deprivation. However, from your description, The evidence of you being/not being sleep deprived is mixed.
Evidence which indicates you’re probably NOT sleep deprived: You spend 10 hours between going to bed and waking up. You enjoy lounging in bed and rise slowly as opposed to being forced awake.
Evidence which would seem to indicate you probably ARE sleep deprived: You don’t have a fixed bedtime. You wake up multiple times in the night, and in some cases have time to think a substantial amount before going back to sleep.
Also, I don’t think I would normally get sleep deprivation headaches in the middle of the night if I was still in bed.
I would say this is probably not the cause of your headaches, but that it might be worth trying to look into your sleep cycle if nothing else pans out.