I've also learned that even without discovering root causes of my tiredness, there are things I can do to alleviate it. Here are some of energy boosters that have worked for me and others over years. Sometimes it helps to use several at once.

Energy Boosters

1. Breath deeply. Three slow deep breaths help oxygenate blood supply better, and especially seems to wake up brain.

2. Move. Often just getting up and washing dishes, or walking around house helps boost energy levels.

3. Talk about something interesting. Get a tired person to talk about something they're passionate about, and watch their energy level rise. This one really works well.

4. Have a cup of coffee. Caffeine makes some of us more tired when it's abused, but short-term, it can work wonders.

Headache treatments come in two forms—abortive and preventive. The abortive form is familiar to most people. It means something you do to get rid of a headache that has already started. Usually it consists of an over-the-counter or prescription medication, but in some cases, a non-drug approach works. By contrast, a preventive treatment is something you do every day with goal of keeping some future attacks from even starting. These, too, can involve drug and non-drug strategies.

Billions of dollars are spent each year on abortive remedies. For most part, they are dollars well spent. And for people who have infrequent headaches that are rapidly and reliably resolved by an abortive treatment, a preventive treatment might be needless.

But if attacks are frequent, hard to resolve, interfere with usual activities—or side-effects from abortive treatment interfere with usual activities—then a preventive treatment should be considered. Employing a preventive remedy does not preclude also using an abortive measure: each can be part of an integrated plan.

Before discussing specific treatments for specific headache types, let's consider impacts of recurring headaches. The more obvious impact is sheer unpleasantness and suffering involved in an attack. However, another impact—though less obvious—is in its own way just as important. And that is associated disability or loss of function that comes with an attack.

If a headache attack is severe, then whatever else was planned for that day goes out window—it's just not going to happen. If an attack is moderate in intensity, then usual activities might be possible, but occur more slowly, less efficiently, or require more effort to produce. This, too, represents headache-associated disability.

An increasing trend in field of headache management is for practitioners to address their patients' loss of function as well as their pain and suffering. Drs. Richard Lipton and Walter Stewart designed a questionnaire to estimate headache-associated disability, called MIDAS (Migraine Disability Assessment) scale which can also be used for non-migraine headaches.

Measuring and then re-measuring MIDAS is one method for judging if a preventive treatment is effective. But to accurately detect effectiveness (or lack of effectiveness) of a preventive headache treatment there should also be some sort of day-by-day recording system.