What to do when you are waking up with aches and pain?
No one wants to start the day by waking up in pain. Yet, it happens all too often. You feel like you get a great night’s sleep, but once you jump out of bed, your shoulder or hip aches. Dealing with tension in your neck and upper back as soon as you wake up. You probably think you slept on it wrong and hope for the best the next evening. Unfortunately, this tends to be a cycle that we continue over and over again until we end up in chronic pain.
Common Complaints of pain when sleeping:
-Lower back pain.
-Joint pain in wrists, knees, hips, low back, and shoulder pain.
-Stiff neck or neck pain.
-Carpal tunnel syndrome or numb fingers and hands.
-Muscle stiffness or muscle tightness.
-Pain in jaw and headaches due to clenching your teeth.
Sleep Position and Poor Sleeping Posture:
Sleeping Positions to Avoid Waking up in Pain
There is a lot of information out there sharing the best way to sleep. Yet, instead of trying to change how you sleep, I believe we can work with fixing the position we sleep in rather than trying to move into a new sleeping position. There is a reason we prefer a certain position so let’s work within that position.
-Stomach Sleepers-place a small pillow or towel at your hips to help bring the pelvis back into neutral.
-Side sleepers-grab a body pillow and use it between your knees to help keep the pelvis neutral. Try placing a pillow near your upper body to keep your shoulders more neutral. Rotate from side to side through the night to help keep your body more balanced. Place a small towel near the ribs to keep them from sliding to one side.
Other things that can help with sleep
If you are dealing with aches and pains from sleeping, I would encourage you to also look at how you move and live during the day. A lot of the things we do during the day affect us when we sleep and may be the cause of our sleep problems.
-Are you getting regular exercise during the day? If you have a lack of exercise, you will be more apt to have stiff joints and tight muscles. It is important to get about 15-20 minutes of exercise during the day to help you feel better in the evening and long term. Physical activity is not only good for sleep but also helps chronic conditions, increased blood flow, and helps to ensure you are at a healthy weight so that you don’t deal with sleep apnea. Don’t stress about the kind of exercise you are doing. Even light exercise, such as walking, can be great for the quality of your sleep.
-When did you last change your mattress? You may be sleeping on a worn-out mattress and it might be time to get a new mattress. Or you can just flip it so it doesn’t conform to your body. Also, look for the right pillow for the way that you sleep. Side sleepers may want a different pillow than back sleepers. Just changing these two things can affect your sleep quality greatly.
-Practice working with your circadian rhythms to help you get a better night’s sleep by getting out in the sunlight first thing in the morning so that you will feel naturally tired by evening. The more you make this part of your daily routine, the better night sleep you will get.
-Practice deep breathing before you settle down for the evening can help to calm the nervous system and help your body to relax.
-How is your daily movement besides exercise? Not only are you exercising, but if you aren’t moving and living a sedentary lifestyle throughout the day in addition to exercising, this may be creating problems. It is important to move around throughout the day to expose your body to different positions.
-Do you have poor posture? If you deal with poor posture it will affect your sleep quality, especially as you get older. You may find that if you tend to round forward during the day, you will have poor sleep posture at night as you tend to be more curled up in a ball while you sleep as well.
Grab our Free Posture Guide, where we provide 3 steps to fix your posture.
Check with a Dr:
If you continue to have sleepless nights or dealing with a lot of pain when you wake up in the morning. Make sure to check with your Doctor to rule out things like obstructive sleep apnea, or any other underlying medical condition.
What about Jaw Clenching
Massage your jaw by pressing down firmly (not to hard). Allow the fingers to slide down to the jawline from where the jaw connects to help relieve tension.From there, you can place your thumb underneath your jaw and gently press up and in a circle to massage that area as well.
If you drink smoothies in the morning, grab a hand full of nuts to eat alongside of the smoothie to help work the muscles in your jaw. This will help to relieve any tension headaches and will help to relieve the stress that may have come from clenching or grinding your teeth during the night.
One Comment
Comments are closed.