A migraine feels like an intense, throbbing or pulsing pain, usually concentrated on one side of the head, that lasts anywhere from 4 to 72 hours. But the pain itself is only part of the experience. Migraines affect your entire body, from your stomach to your skin, and the full episode can stretch across days when you count the warning signs before and the exhaustion after.
The Pain Itself
The hallmark sensation is a deep, pulsating throb that often settles behind one eye or temple, though it can spread to both sides. It’s not the dull, band-like squeeze of a tension headache. People describe it as a heartbeat inside their skull, with each pulse of blood seeming to amplify the pressure. The intensity ranges from moderate to severe, and for many people it’s completely disabling.
One of the most distinctive features is how movement makes it worse. Something as simple as bending forward, walking up stairs, or turning your head quickly can send a sharp spike of pain through your skull. In clinical testing, pain worsening from bending forward had 98% sensitivity for distinguishing migraine from tension headache. This is why people mid-migraine instinctively go still, lying flat in a dark room, barely moving. The urge to avoid all physical activity is as strong as the sensitivity to light or sound.
Sensory Overload
During a migraine, your brain becomes hypersensitive to normal sensory input. Light feels painfully bright, even at levels that would normally be comfortable. Sounds that you’d usually ignore, like a conversation in the next room or a dog barking outside, become grating and seem amplified. Many people also develop a heightened sense of smell, where perfume, cooking odors, or cleaning products trigger waves of nausea.
Perhaps the most unsettling sensory change is something called cutaneous allodynia, where your skin itself becomes painful to touch. During an attack, the weight of a ponytail pulling on your scalp, glasses resting on your nose, or even a pillow against your face can hurt. This sensitivity can extend beyond the head to your arms and torso. For some people, these sensory sensitivities linger between attacks too, not just during them, making it difficult to explain to employers, friends, or family why everyday environments feel overwhelming.
What Happens to Your Stomach
Nausea is one of the defining symptoms of a migraine, and it’s not minor queasiness. Many people vomit during attacks. The reason goes deeper than just feeling sick from pain: during a migraine, your stomach essentially slows down. Research has found that people mid-migraine meet the criteria for gastroparesis (delayed stomach emptying) about 78% of the time. Their stomachs take significantly longer to process food, roughly 189 minutes compared to 112 minutes in people without migraines.
This slowed digestion explains why eating during a migraine feels impossible, why you may feel bloated or uncomfortably full from small amounts of food, and why oral pain medications often don’t seem to work. The medication sits in your stomach instead of being absorbed, which is why dissolving or liquid forms are sometimes more effective during an attack.
Warning Signs Before the Pain
Many people get subtle warnings hours or even a day before the headache hits. This prodrome phase can include mood changes like irritability or depression, difficulty concentrating, unusual fatigue, neck and shoulder stiffness, and food cravings. Some warning signs are oddly specific: excessive yawning, frequent urination, and constipation or diarrhea. Once you learn to recognize your own prodrome pattern, these early signals can give you a window to prepare.
About a quarter of migraine sufferers also experience aura, which typically starts 20 to 60 minutes before the pain. Aura is primarily visual. You might see shimmering zigzag lines, flashing lights, or geometric patterns that expand across your field of vision. Some people describe it as looking through a kaleidoscope, or like the heat ripples you see rising off hot pavement. Blind spots can appear, sometimes covered by a sparkling, pulsing distortion. Less commonly, aura involves tingling or numbness that spreads up one arm, or temporary difficulty finding words.
The Migraine Hangover
After the headache fades, the experience isn’t over. The postdrome phase, often called a migraine hangover, can last another day or two. It feels remarkably similar to an alcohol hangover: deep fatigue, body aches (especially a stiff neck), dizziness, and a foggy inability to concentrate or make decisions. Light and sound sensitivity often persist at lower levels. Your mood may swing unpredictably, from a strange euphoria to feeling depressed or flat.
During postdrome, you may feel better resting in a dark, quiet space, much like during the headache itself. The cognitive fog is particularly frustrating. Tasks that normally require no effort, like reading an email or following a conversation, can feel genuinely difficult. Many people describe feeling “not quite right” for a full day after the pain resolves, as though their brain is still recovering from what it just went through.
How to Tell It’s a Migraine
If you’re wondering whether what you experience qualifies as a migraine, the diagnostic criteria require at least two of these four features: pain on one side of the head, a pulsating quality, moderate to severe intensity, or worsening with routine physical activity like walking or climbing stairs. You also need at least one of these: nausea or vomiting, or sensitivity to both light and sound. Attacks need to last at least 4 hours (2 hours in children) and you need to have had at least five episodes fitting this pattern.
The movement piece is a useful clue. If bending over to pick something up makes your headache noticeably worse, that strongly suggests migraine rather than tension headache. The same goes for the “jolt test,” where a brisk side-to-side head shake intensifies the pain. Tension headaches are uncomfortable, but they rarely force you to stop moving, avoid all light, or make you vomit. A migraine does all three.