Study: Sex, a natural remedy for headache

MANILA, Philippines – Got a pounding head? Grab your beau instead of your bottle of pills. Study says that sex is a natural remedy to headaches.

A study published in Cephalalgia, the journal of the International Headache Society, found that sex relieves migraine and cluster headaches. How true is this?

A migraine headache can cause intense throbbing or a pulsing sensation in one area of the head and is commonly accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and extreme sensitivity to light and sound while a cluster headache is one of the most painful types of headache. Symptoms include intense pain in or around one eye on one side of your head.

Eight hundred migraine patients and 200 patients with cluster headaches (intensely painful headaches) were surveyed by Researchers from the University of Munster in Germany. They were asked questions such as if sexual intercourse has an impact on their headaches. Results showed that 60 percent of those with migraines and 37 percent of those with cluster headaches admitted that sex helped reduced the intensity of their symptoms. One in five patients left without any pain at all.

"The majority of patients with migraine or cluster headache do not have sexual activity during headache attacks. Our data suggest, however, that sexual activity can lead to partial or complete relief of headache in some migraine and a few cluster headache patients," the researchers concluded.

One possible explanation for this is that the release of hormones called endorphins. These hormones are released during the sexual intercourse. They act as natural painkillers, through the central nervous system, which can in turn reduce, or even eliminate, a headache.

What’s even more amazing is that unlike painkiller pills, which take 15-30 minutes to kick in, the endorphins ability to reduce pain work instantly.