Sleepless minds, throbbing heads: The relationship between sleep deprivation and migraine in young adults

Young adulthood is a season of life when sleep is treated almost like a currency to be traded away for grades, careers, and social connection. Medical students are perhaps the most vivid example of this bargain, routinely sleeping far less than their bodies require. At the same time, migraine disproportionately targets people in this age group, with women affected about three times as often as men. This narrative review examines the growing evidence that sleep deprivation is not merely an innocent bystander in this story but an active driver of migraine onset, frequency, and severity in young adults. Drawing on clinical studies, functional neuroimaging, animal experiments, and systematic reviews published over the past two decades, the article traces how sleep loss disturbs the hypothalamic and brainstem circuits, neurotransmitter systems, and glymphatic clearance that normally keep the trigeminovascular pathway in check.