If pain and sleep had social media accounts, they would list their relationship as complicated. Medical science has proven a link between the two, but that link isn’t fully understood in all of its details. Unfortunately, the relationship between sleep and pain is both complex and bidirectional. One impacts the other and vice versa.
This complicated relationship can result in a vicious cycle that makes life very difficult. Utah’s KindlyMD explains that significant pain can inhibit productive sleep. Likewise, not getting enough sleep can make pain worse. KindlyMD clinicians work to break the pain-sleep cycle so that patients can take their lives back.
Prevalence of Chronic Pain and Sleep Issues
An estimated 50-90% of people experiencing chronic pain do not sleep well. Their quality of sleep is less than what they need to feel good throughout the day. In addition, 88% report specific sleep disturbances. Clearly, people experiencing chronic pain aren’t sleeping like they should.
In terms of specific health conditions, some are worse for sleep than others. Here are just three examples, along with the number of patients who reports sleep problems:
- Rheumatoid arthritis – 65%
- Osteoarthritis – 70%
- Fibromyalgia – 95%
Osteoarthritis is one of the most common diseases in the world. It impacts nearly every adult at some point in life. So it should be no surprise when older people say they don’t sleep as well as they should.
How Pain Impacts Sleep
Pain can impact sleep in a number of ways. Right off the top, pain can make falling asleep difficult. People struggle to fall asleep because they just cannot get comfortable. And even once they do doze off, they cannot stay asleep. Pain wakes them up.
Chronic pain patients frequently report regular nighttime awakenings. This interferes with a person’s ability to progress through the various stages of sleep. A patient doesn’t get enough of the deep, restorative REM sleep that is so critical to good health.
Finally, pain can lead to getting less sleep overall. It can make insomnia worse. Pain can even aggravate sleep apnea. The cumulative result of all of this is a fear of not being able to sleep, a fear that subsequently activates the brain and makes it that much harder to relax enough to fall asleep.
How Poor Sleep Impacts Pain
A chronic pain patient who does not sleep well is at greater risk of feeling worse physically. This is due to a number of factors, not the least of which is the fact that a lack of sleep increases pain sensitivity. It also tends to lower a person’s pain tolerance.
A lack of sleep also:
- Aggravates pain by triggering inflammation.
- Inhibits the body’s natural ability to heal itself.
- Negatively impacts mood.
- Inhibits coping strategies normally utilized to manage pain.
It turns out that sleep quality is a very good predictor of the pain experience. The less quality sleep a patient gets in a given night, the more likely that person is to experience higher levels of pain the following day.
Treating Both Together
Because pain and sleep are so intrinsically linked, it’s best to treat pain and a lack of sleep together. Treating one while ignoring the other isn’t in a patient’s best interests. However, treating them together isn’t always as easy as it sounds.
The relationship between pain and sleep is a complicated one. It is something that doctors and scientists have been struggling with for generations. Thankfully, modern medicine has access to a variety of therapies that can all be used together to treat both conditions. And when treatment is successful, life gets so much better.
