Because your body views alcohol as a toxic substance, it’s perfectly normal to experience a headache from drinking alcohol. Alcohol’s effects on your body include dehydration, inflammation, reduced sleep quality, and the buildup of toxic substances—all of which can give you a headache. This type of headache is known as the ‘cocktail headache’ and comes on shortly after taking an alcoholic drink. This type of headache is less common, but many people may notice the symptoms developing within 3 hours of drinking.
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- Always drink responsibly—which includes minimizing the chances that alcohol will affect your migraine.
- While in some cases it is likely the presence of alcohol itself, it is also possible that specific components of different alcoholic drinks act as triggers.
- To add to the confusion, even known headache triggers aren’t universally reliable.
- Drinking alcohol is a trigger for migraine in some people – one study found around a third (33%) of people who get migraines are sensitive to alcohol.4 Others react to hunger, or certain foods.
Other effects of drinking alcohol
