Alcohol and cigarette smoke

Blood flow to your brain increases when you drink alcohol, increasing headache pain. Some scientists blame some headaches on impurities in alcohol or on byproducts produced as your body metabolizes alcohol.

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Smoking and secondhand smoke from cigarettes, cigars, and pipes can trigger headaches and make any headache, especially migraine headaches, worse. Nicotine, one of the components of tobacco, stimulates vascular activity in the brain. Smoking also stimulates the ganglion nerves in the back of the throat, contributing to headache pain. Usually, removing the nicotine provides relief. (Note that 85 percent of cluster headache patients are smokers. It is alcohol that frequently precipitates a cluster headache when the cluster period starts.)

Quitting smoking or reducing exposure to secondhand smoke is not especially helpful for those with cluster headaches, although one study found that headaches decreased 50 percent in those who reduced their tobacco use by less than one-half pack of cigarettes per day. Other studies have not confirmed this finding.