Most headaches last between 30 minutes and a few hours, but some types can persist for days, weeks, or even months. The duration depends almost entirely on what kind of headache you’re dealing with. A tension headache might fade in half an hour, while a migraine can stretch to three days, and certain chronic headache disorders produce near-constant pain that lasts for months at a time.
Tension Headaches: 30 Minutes to 7 Days
Tension headaches are the most common type, and their duration range is wide. A mild episode can wrap up in about 30 minutes, but a bad one can linger for up to a full week. The pain is typically a steady, pressing sensation on both sides of the head rather than a throbbing pulse.
How often tension headaches recur matters as much as how long each one lasts. Infrequent episodic tension headaches strike one day a month or fewer. Frequent episodic ones hit between one and 14 days every month for at least three months. Once you’re experiencing headaches on more than 15 days per month for three months running, the pattern is classified as chronic. Some people with chronic tension headaches describe the feeling as a near-constant pressure that never fully lifts.
Migraines: 4 to 72 Hours
An untreated migraine attack typically lasts between 4 and 72 hours. That three-day ceiling is a formal diagnostic marker set by the International Headache Society. During that window, the pain is usually one-sided and throbbing, often joined by nausea, light sensitivity, or both. Successful treatment with medication can shorten an attack considerably, but without it, you may be looking at a full day or more of significant pain.
When a migraine breaks past the 72-hour mark and shows no signs of letting up, it crosses into a category called status migrainosus. This is considered a complication of migraine, not just a long one. The pain is unremitting and debilitating, and it typically requires medical intervention beyond what you’d use for a standard attack.
Chronic Migraine
Chronic migraine is diagnosed when you have headache days (migraine-like or tension-type) on 15 or more days per month for longer than three months, with at least 8 of those days having migraine features. At that frequency, the line between individual attacks starts to blur. Many people with chronic migraine describe their baseline as a low-grade daily headache with full migraine episodes layered on top.
Cluster Headaches: 15 Minutes to 3 Hours
Individual cluster headache attacks are shorter than migraines but far more intense. Each episode lasts between 15 minutes and 3 hours, with severe, stabbing pain concentrated around one eye or temple. The catch is frequency: attacks can strike anywhere from once every other day to eight times in a single day.
These attacks come in waves called cluster periods, which typically last weeks to months. After a cluster period ends, most people enter a remission phase that can last months or even years before the next round begins. So while any single attack is relatively brief, the overall pattern of recurring bouts can stretch across a significant chunk of your life.
Headaches That Never Seem to Stop
New daily persistent headache (NDPH) is one of the more frustrating diagnoses in headache medicine. It starts suddenly, often on a specific day you can pinpoint, and the pain becomes continuous within 24 hours. To meet the diagnostic criteria, the headache must be present for longer than three months. Some people with NDPH experience pain that lasts for years, and it can be difficult to treat because it doesn’t always respond to standard headache medications.
Headaches After a Head Injury
Post-traumatic headaches following a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury are common and often resolve on their own, but the timeline is slower than most people expect. About one-third of people who develop headaches after a head injury still have them three months later. In one large study of nearly 1,600 people who visited an emergency department after a mild brain injury, roughly 28% still reported headaches at three months, representing about half of those who had headaches two weeks after their injury. For many, these headaches gradually fade, but a significant number of people deal with them for considerably longer.
When Pain Medication Makes It Worse
If you’re taking over-the-counter pain relievers or other headache medications frequently, the drugs themselves can start causing headaches. Medication overuse headache (sometimes called rebound headache) creates a self-reinforcing cycle: the headache prompts more medication, which triggers more headaches. These headaches tend to be daily or near-daily and persist as long as the overuse continues. The good news is they generally resolve after you stop taking the offending medication, though the withdrawal period can be uncomfortable and the exact recovery timeline varies from person to person.
Headaches That Need Immediate Attention
Most headaches, even painful ones, fall into predictable duration ranges and aren’t dangerous. But a thunderclap headache, one that reaches maximum intensity within 60 seconds, is a red flag regardless of how long it lasts. That explosive onset can signal a bleeding event in the brain or another serious condition. A headache that peaks that fast warrants emergency evaluation even if the pain starts to fade.
Outside of thunderclap headaches, other patterns worth paying attention to include any headache that is dramatically different from your usual pattern, one that keeps getting worse over days without responding to anything, or a headache accompanied by fever, stiff neck, confusion, or neurological changes like vision loss or weakness on one side of your body. Duration alone isn’t always the best measure of seriousness, but a headache that steadily worsens over hours or days without any relief is telling you something your body needs you to act on.