The pain modifier – sleep
When we sleep we repair ourselves both physically and mentally.
Those suffering with longterm pain will really struggle to improve their quality of life without sleeping seven-eight hours each night. It’s a myth that we require less sleep as we get older and lack of sleep is an absolute block to recovery from chronic pain.
Many of us only sleep 4-6 hours each night and believe that this is ok as its ‘normal.’ Unfortunately it’s not.
Pain obviously makes the process of a good night’s sleep more difficult as stress chemicals such as cortisol place the human body on high alert and we feel pain more keenly at night when there are fewer distractions.
Research into this field is finding that those suffering with sleep deprivation have a higher sensitivity to pain and a diminished perception of their capacity to cope in general with life’s stresses.
What this tells us is that a lack of sleep could in fact be more debilitating than the pain itself. Research has pointed to the fact that those suffering with insomnia exhibit a 40 per cent higher chance of experiencing chronic pain. So in many cases the pain could be originating from lack of sleep instead of the other way round which is the traditional thought process.
Add to this a compromised immune system, poor mental health, an increased desire to eat and a higher risk of developing cancer, diabetes and coronary heart disease and it’s clear to see how important the land of nod can be to our health and wellbeing.
So what strategies can we employ to improve our chance of falling asleep and remaining there without too much fragmentation during the night?
We’ll look at that next week but in the meantime the best thing we can do is to develop a sleep routine in terms of the time we go to bed and the time we wake. Perhaps you could decide not to watch that extra episode on Netflix in the evening and perhaps you could ignore the snooze button in the morning and by doing so create a longer period of higher quality sleep.
If this new habit can be sustained over a week the net result could be equivalent to a whole extra night’s sleep. That can be life changing and in the long term have the same effect as pain-killing medication. Sleep well.
For the full message go to the free resource section on the lornhealthyoptions.co.uk website.