Pain is a common issue that many adults face, and it greatly impacts our quality and quantity of sleep. Chronic pain can really hinder your ability to get a good night’s sleep, which makes it harder to heal, and creates many types of complications. Here is an overview of how muscles and pain interact with sleep, and some tips for how to improve your sleep, even in the presence of pain.
How Pain Affects Sleep
Pain is a common cause of insomnia, primarily due to the following statistics: [2015 Sleep in AmericaTM Poll]:
- People with chronic pain had an average nightly sleep debt of 42 minutes (i.e. getting 42 minutes less sleep than they should)
- People with acute pain in the last week had an average sleep debt of 14 minutes
- 37 percent of people with chronic pain in the last week reported good or very good sleep quality, versus 65% who didn’t have pain
- 23 percent of people with chronic pain reported being diagnosed with a sleep disorder by a doctor, compared to just 6 percent of pain free people. It’s quite a sobering statistic
Yoga has effectively been used to treat chronic and acute pain in various situations. Yoga focuses on challenging the body with postures that improve skeletal and muscular alignment and improves flexibility.
What Muscles Do In Response to Chronic Pain
With chronic pain, the body begins to perform a muscular function called “guarding”. An example of this is flinching when you think something is going to hit your or harm you. It's a reflex where you tense-up in that area.
Reflexes work on a different level of neurology than other functions. Many reflexes don’t happen in the conscious portions of our brains, but rather, occur as a circuit of neurons in a localized area from the spinal cord and out to the muscle. This is important to know moving forward for how pain can go from acute and temporary, to chronic, and really interrupt sleep in the process.
Chronic Muscle Tension and Sleep
For many individuals, stress expresses itself in tightness in the upper trapezius muscles – the muscles at the top of our shoulders and leading to our neck.
When we have low-level stressors in our lives, or have an ongoing injury in a particular area, our muscles respond with this guarding reflex. It’s not as exaggerated as when we flinch, but it can be easily observed in people that are highly stressed as their muscles likely express this tension as well.
Over time, this tension can become problematic causing:
- Improper posture
- Muscle fatigue
- Increased stress-perception
- Trigger-points or stress-points in the muscle
- Increased cortisol
- Irritability
- Increased injury
When the muscles have a low-level tension and low-level guarding, it causes a domino effect for the body, where the body is sending signals of stress and discomfort. Many times, people don’t even realize they are stressed.
Exercises to Relax Muscle Tension
Some easy exercises to combat this body-tension is to remind yourself and others to:
- lower your shoulders
- not press your tongue to the roof of your mouth
- un-furrow your forehead
- relax your eyes
- straighten your spine
Body Scan Before Sleep
One meditative technique that is universally useful is called a “body scan”. In this exercise, the individual brings attention to each portion of the body, starting at the top of the skull and working slowly down all the way to the bottom of the feet. When each body part comes into awareness, the individual intentionally releases all tension in this area.
If you haven’t tried this, it is an easy way to calm the mind, relax the body, and break yourself out of those sub-conscious muscle guarding patterns that have been hanging around, potentially giving you more pain than you want. Try doing a self-administered body scan before bed. If you are tired, or have had increased resting tension in your body, there’s a good chance you will fall asleep before you get to your feet!
If you struggle to get a good night's rest, please click the orange button below to take a free online sleep test and talk with one of our sleep health experts.
