The yawning may not have been tiredness. It may be the earliest line in a log your diary never had.

You are in the passenger seat on the way to your mother’s. Your daughter, in the back, is counting.

“That’s four,” she says. “You did that on the way to school on Monday, too.”

You laugh. “Long week.”

By dinner the candles feel too bright. Thursday you are in the dark room with the ice cap, going back over what you ate.

The yawning never makes it into the diary. It does not look like a symptom. It looks like being tired.

Yawning before migraine is on the list

The American Migraine Foundation lists yawning among the symptoms of the first phase of a migraine attack, the prodrome. Its list of prodrome symptoms also includes irritability, fatigue, food cravings and sensitivity to light or sound. It adds that not everyone has every symptom, or has them the same way.

Mayo Clinic agrees. Its symptoms page names frequent yawning in the prodrome, and says it can occur one or two days before the other phases.

The American Migraine Foundation’s timeline of an attack goes a step further. It calls yawning, certain food cravings and frequent urination especially unique to this phase.

Migraine yawning is not a myth, and yawning before a migraine attack is a recognized early sign. So excessive yawning and migraine have a recognized link. It is not a coincidence you invented.

How common is yawning before a migraine?

The numbers depend on who was asked.

A cross-sectional study of 339 people with migraine, mostly women, published in the journal Headache in 2018, reported that repetitive yawning in the early phase occurred in 11.2%. It was reported by 24.2% during the headache itself, and by about 45% of people at some point during their attacks.

A 2024 review in Frontiers in Neurology, which tabulates earlier studies, puts the range far wider, from under 1% to about 40% depending on the study. Studies ask different people, in different ways.

That spread is the honest answer. Yawning before a migraine is common enough to appear on every list, and uncommon enough that plenty of people never notice it.

How long before a migraine does yawning start?

No source we found gives a lead time for yawning alone. What exists is the timing of the whole first phase:

• **Mayo Clinic:** one or two days before.
• **American Migraine Foundation:** several hours or days before the aura or headache.
• **The headache classification doctors use**, quoted in a 2024 Frontiers in Neurology review: 2 to 48 hours before.

For the wider timeline, see how early a migraine can start.

Why do I yawn before a migraine?

Researchers have an idea, and they say it is not settled.

The Headache study describes yawning as considered a sign of activity in the brain’s dopamine system, and says the mechanism is not yet fully understood. The Frontiers review links the early phase to the hypothalamus, and says the biology of the prodrome remains to be fully worked out.

The hypothalamus helps run sleep, appetite and hormones. Yawning, cravings and odd sleep sit on the same list. That is the pattern, not a proof.

Yawning vs tiredness before migraine

This is the question most people actually have, and we looked for a direct answer.

We did not find one. The American Migraine Foundation and Mayo Clinic list yawning and fatigue as separate symptoms without explaining how to tell them apart. The 2018 study’s authors call repetitive yawning a distinctive symptom in people with migraine, but that is a description of the group, not a way to sort one yawn from another.

So here is the practical version. One tired yawn tells you nothing. A pattern that repeats before your attacks is worth writing down.

Why your diary blamed the cheese

If yawning belongs to the attack, then other early signs may have been blamed too.

The American Migraine Foundation says people often misattribute early symptoms to something that caused the attack. Its page on migraine triggers features Dr. Rashmi Halker Singh of Mayo Clinic Arizona on the same idea: some well-known triggers may be signs that an attack has already started. Her example is a craving for chocolate.

So the diary starts at the pain, and the cause it picks is whatever came just before it.

Questions

Is yawning a sign of migraine?

It can be. The American Migraine Foundation and Mayo Clinic both list yawning as a symptom of the first phase of an attack.

Why do I yawn before a migraine?

Researchers link yawning to the brain’s dopamine system and the hypothalamus. They say the exact mechanism is not fully understood.

How long before a migraine does yawning start?

No source gives a lead time for yawning alone. Mayo Clinic says frequent yawning can occur one or two days before, and the formal headache classification puts the first phase at 2 to 48 hours before the attack.

How common is excessive yawning with migraine?

In one study of 339 people, 11.2% reported repetitive yawning in the early phase and about 45% at some point during attacks. Across studies, estimates range from under 1% to about 40%.

Is yawning before a migraine the same as being tired?

Sources list them as separate symptoms and do not explain how to tell them apart. A pattern that repeats before your attacks is the clue.

Can yawning mean a migraine attack is starting?

It can be one early sign of the first phase. Look for it alongside other signs, such as neck stiffness, cravings or light sensitivity.

Where the line comes in

If yawning can come before the pain, the real question is how close your brain was to the edge when the day began.

There is a name for that edge. The Migraine Tipping Line™.

Read what the Migraine Tipping Line™ is, and why your diary never found it →

For the full list of early signs, see what is migraine prodrome, and for another sign on the same list, neck tightness before migraine.