Seizure Triggers: The Ones You Can Actually Influence
By Dr. Chris Cormier, DC — The Nerve Health Institute, Lafayette, Louisiana Every Purple Day, the same number gets quoted: around fifty million people worldwide live with epilepsy. It is a true number and it is worth knowing. But it is not the most important one, and leading with it misses what is genuinely good news. The number I would lead with instead The World Health Organization states that up to 70% of people living with epilepsy could become seizure free with the appropriate use of anti-seizure medicines. Seven in ten. That is not a hopeful projection — it is what the treatment achieves when people get it and stay on it. WHO notes that in low-income countries about three quarters of people with epilepsy may not get the treatment they need, and that is where most of the gap between fifty million and seven in ten actually lives. It is an access problem far more than a medicine problem. If you are reading this with a prescription in your hand, you are already on the right side of that gap. What epilepsy is, briefly Epilepsy is a brain condition characterised by recurrent seizures. WHO puts the cause as unknown in roughly half of cases worldwide; identified causes include birth-related brain damage, congenital or genetic conditions, severe head injury, stroke, brain infections such as meningitis, certain genetic syndromes and brain tumours. Diagnosis and treatment belong with a neurologist. Nothing on this page is an alternative explanation of epilepsy, and we would be wary of anyone offering one. The most important trigger is the one people do not call a trigger Look at any clinical list of seizure triggers and notice what sits at the top of it. Missed medication. Not stress, not flashing lights — missed doses. It is the single most common and most preventable trigger there is, and it usually happens for ordinary reasons: a late night, a changed routine, a holiday, a run of good weeks that made it feel less necessary. So the most useful thing on this page is also the dullest. Take every dose, on time, including when you have been seizure free for a long stretch — especially then. A long seizure-free run is the treatment working, not evidence that it has finished. And if something about the medication is difficult — side effects, cost, timing, the sheer grind of it — that is a conversation for your neurologist, not a reason to quietly adjust it yourself. Those are solvable problems and they would far rather hear about it. WHO notes that people with epilepsy face up to three times the risk of early death compared with the general population, and seizure control is the thing that most directly addresses that. It is worth the phone call. The rest of the list Triggers vary enormously between people. Some have clear ones, some have none at all, and your list will not be somebody else’s. The commonly identified triggers are: Look at that list again and notice how many are things you have some influence over. That is the genuinely encouraging part — and it is where a clinic like ours can be useful. Sleep, because it sits second for a reason Of everything you can influence without a prescription, this is the biggest, and it is also the one most often left to chance. Most of what helps is environmental rather than a matter of willpower: a cool room at around 65 to 68°F, properly dark — most bedrooms are not, and a sleep mask settles it in one night — with air actually moving, lights down an hour before bed, and the same wind-down in the same order every night. Consistency of timing matters as much as duration here. A regular schedule is doing real work, not just making you feel organised. The full environmental build is in the best sleep environment, with the practical seven-night version at BodyCharger. Stress, and the capacity to come back down Stress appears on every trigger list, and “reduce your stress” is famously useless advice on its own. The version that is actually actionable is about building the capacity to settle. Your nervous system has an alert side and a calming side, and what you want is both working well — able to rev up when life demands it and able to come all the way back down afterwards. That second part is a trainable capacity rather than a personality trait. The practical core is small: cover the eyes, control the sound, and breathe with the out-breath longer than the in-breath for a couple of minutes. More in how to get out of fight-or-flight and how to relax when your mind will not switch off. Keep a seizure diary — it is the highest-value thing you can do If you take one practical action from this page besides the medication point, make it this. Record when seizures happen — time of day or night, what you were doing beforehand, and how you were feeling. Patterns that are invisible in memory become obvious on paper over a few months. Then bring it to your neurologist. A diary turns “I think stress might set them off” into something a clinician can actually work with, and it is the difference between guessing at your triggers and knowing them. Note sleep, missed doses, illness and alcohol alongside the seizures themselves — the useful pattern is often in the days before, not the hour before. Seizure first aid: please read this part even if you do not have epilepsy This is the most useful thing on this page for the general reader, and most people get at least one step wrong. The CDC’s seizure first aid is: For a generalised seizure, also ease them to the ground if they are falling, clear the area, put something soft and flat under the head, remove glasses, and loosen anything tight around the neck. What not to do When to call 911 The