Can jaw clenching trigger migraines?

You wake up with your teeth pressed together, and by mid-morning the familiar migraine is building behind your temple. Or a long, tense day ends with a sore jaw and an attack in the evening. Many people with migraine notice this pattern, and you are far from the only one wondering whether your jaw plays a part.

In this guide I explain how the chewing muscles at your temples connect to migraine, what the research can and cannot say, and how you can test your own jaw in under a minute. You will also get a simple diary method and the short routine I use with people whose migraines seem to start in the jaw.

In short

Jaw clenching and jaw muscle pain often go together with migraine, and for some people a tense jaw may be one of the things that makes attacks more likely, although research has not shown that clenching causes attacks. Migraine and jaw disorders go together much more often than chance would predict, and the link runs both ways, according to a 2026 meta-analysis (Dias et al., 2026).

• Your temporalis, one of the main chewing muscles, sits exactly where many people feel their migraine.
• If attacks often start in the morning or after a stressful day, track how your jaw feels on those days.
• A temple self-test and a short daily jaw routine can show you whether your jaw is worth working on.

How is your jaw connected to your temples?

Put your fingertips on the sides of your head just above and in front of your ears, then bite down. The muscle that bulges under your fingers is the temporalis. It fans out across the side of your skull and attaches to your lower jaw, and together with the masseter in your cheek it does most of the work when you chew or clench.

When you clench at night or under stress, these muscles stay switched on for long stretches. The tension builds up right at the temples, which is where many people with migraine feel their headache. The international headache classification (ICHD-3) notes that headache from a jaw disorder is usually most noticeable at the temples, in front of the ear or over the masseter (ICHD-3, 2018). If you want the broader picture of jaw-related headache, our article can TMJ cause headaches? covers it in detail.

Can clenching really trigger a migraine?

The honest answer is that nobody has shown clenching sets off attacks, but jaw problems and migraine are clearly linked, which makes your jaw worth looking at. The strongest evidence is about how often the conditions overlap. A 2026 meta-analysis found that people with migraine had about six times the odds of also having a jaw disorder, and people with a jaw disorder had about two and a half times the odds of migraine. The authors rated this evidence as high certainty and advise doctors to screen for both conditions when one is present (Dias et al., 2026).

A controlled study of 300 people from Brazil went a step further. Muscle-related jaw disorders were linked with migraine, and the more severe the jaw problem was, the more often people had headaches (Gonçalves et al., 2011). The researchers suggest that ongoing pain signals from the chewing muscles may make the nervous system more sensitive, which could make attacks easier to set off.

For clenching and grinding specifically, the data are thinner. A 2021 systematic review found only two studies on bruxism and migraine. One found a clear association and the other did not reach statistical significance, and the certainty of the evidence was low to very low (Réus et al., 2021). So if you clench, your jaw is a reasonable thing to look at, alongside the better known migraine triggers.

Why do attacks start in the morning or after a stressful day?

The NHS lists stress and tiredness among the common migraine triggers (NHS, 2026). Stress is also a time when many people clench without noticing, and night-time clenching happens while you sleep. That means a morning attack or an attack after a hard day may have more than one ingredient, and a tight jaw can be one of them.

This is where a diary helps. The NHS suggests keeping a migraine diary to work out what might trigger your attacks (NHS, 2026). I ask people to add one extra line for the jaw. For two to four weeks, note each day:

• whether you had an attack, when it started and where the pain sat,
• how your jaw felt when you woke up and in the evening, on a scale from 0 to 10,
• whether you caught yourself clenching, and how stressed the day was.

After a few weeks, look for a pattern. If sore-jaw mornings and attack days keep lining up, bring the diary to your doctor or dentist. You can log jaw pain and stress in the daily check-ins in the app, which makes the pattern easier to see over the weeks. Our page on whether stress can cause jaw pain explains the stress side.

Try it: the temple clench test

This is the quick check I show in the reel.

1. Sit upright and think of where your migraine usually sits. Point to that spot with one finger.
2. Place the fingertips of both hands on your temples, just above and in front of your ears.
3. Clench your teeth gently, at about a third of your full strength, and hold for two or three seconds.
4. Feel whether the muscle under your fingers hardens, and whether it hardens right where your headache usually is.
5. Relax your jaw, let your teeth come apart and repeat once.

If the muscle hardens right where your headache usually sits, it is worth having your jaw checked, especially if pressing that spot or chewing brings on your familiar headache. The test does not diagnose anything on its own. Pressing the temple muscle and seeing whether it brings on the familiar headache is part of the standard exam for headache from a jaw disorder (ICHD-3, 2018), and in a study of 373 people with headache and a jaw disorder, this sign together with a temple headache that changes with chewing or clenching picked out jaw-related headache well (Schiffman et al., 2012). A dentist or physiotherapist who works with jaws can do this exam properly.

What can you do for your jaw on migraine-prone days?

The jaw routine works alongside your migraine treatment and does not replace it. Keep using what your doctor has prescribed.

In the moment

When you notice your jaw is tight, let your teeth drop apart and find the rest position: tongue resting gently on the roof of your mouth, lips closed, teeth apart. Hold it for a few calm breaths. During an attack, the NHS suggests resting or sleeping in a darkened room (NHS, 2026), and for some people a gentle temple massage feels good at that point too, while for others any touch is too much.

Long term

I suggest this five-minute routine once or twice a day for several weeks:

• Temple massage with teeth apart: slow circles with your fingertips over both temples for about a minute, keeping your teeth slightly apart so the muscle can let go.
• Masseter massage: find the cheek muscle by clenching briefly, then relax and stroke it downwards from the cheekbone to the jaw angle for about a minute.
• Rest position: tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart. Check it several times a day, for example whenever you look at your phone.
• Slow opening: with your tongue on the roof of your mouth, open slowly and close again, ten times, keeping your jaw from drifting to one side.

The app has guided videos for jaw massage with a muscle overlay that shows which muscle you are working, plus a daily tooth contact check that helps you notice clenching during the day. More routines are on our TMJ exercises page, and if night-time grinding is part of the picture, see can teeth grinding cause headaches?.

How JawBuddy helps

JawBuddy is a digital companion for guided jaw exercises and self-management. At the start, the app asks about your pain, clicking and how freely your jaw moves, and measures how far you can open with your front camera. The app then builds a personal plan with a therapeutic algorithm based on your symptoms and medical history, and the daily check-ins let you rate your pain, stress and how helpful the exercises felt.

JawBuddy does not replace emergency care or an individual diagnosis from a qualified healthcare professional. If you want to try the routine with guidance, download the app on the App Store or Google Play.

When should you see a doctor?

Some headaches need help straight away. The NHS advises you to call 999 (in the US, 911) if you have:

• a headache that came on suddenly and is extremely painful,
• problems speaking or remembering things, or you feel drowsy or confused,
• loss of vision, or blurred or double vision,
• weakness or inability to move the arm or leg on one side of your body, or one side of your face,
• a seizure, a very high temperature with signs of meningitis, or a recent head injury (NHS, 2026).

Ask for an urgent GP appointment or contact NHS 111 if an attack has lasted longer than 72 hours, if aura symptoms last longer than an hour at a time, or if you are pregnant or have just had a baby (NHS, 2026).

See a GP if your attacks are severe, getting worse or lasting longer than usual, if they come more than once a week, or if they are hard to control (NHS, 2026). Go back sooner if your jaw locks, you cannot open or close your mouth, or you have facial swelling with a fever. Our jaw pain page helps you sort out the jaw side.

Your jaw is one piece you can work on

Living with migraine often means feeling at the mercy of attacks. Finding out that your jaw is involved gives you something small and practical to change. This week, try the temple clench test and start the diary, and after a few weeks you will know more about your own pattern.

For everything else about jaw problems, read our TMJ disorder guide.