The research says that unlike ordinary headaches, the weekend variety affects as many men as women. It found a third of migraine sufferers and a sixth of those with tension-type headaches suffered attacks only or mainly at the weekend.
One researcher found many weekend headache sufferers consumed twice as much caffeine as non-sufferers and woke an average of two hours later on weekend mornings. Those who slept late and had a higher intake of caffeine drinks such as coffee or tea had a 70 percent chance of coming down with a weekend headache.
"Office workers swig coffee during the working week, but lying in on Saturday morning means that your regular early-morning 'fix' of caffeine is delayed by a couple of hours," the study says. "This could make the difference. If you want to avoid the weekend headache, you should treat the weekend as if it were a working week and get up at the same time."
