The Relationship Between Sleep and Pain
In addition to obvious side effects of poor sleep (fatigue, grumpiness, inability to focus), a lack of quality sleep has compounding consequences for someone suffering chronic pain. Sleep is a time for your body to heal. There are a series of biological processes that only occur when you are asleep.
Sleep is so important that some doctors believe that initial triggers for chronic pain conditions, such as fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, are related to sleep.
There are 2 primary stages of sleep: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and non-REM sleep. Your body cycles through these stages multiple times each night. REM sleep is necessary for restoring your mind, while the deepest stages of non-REM sleep are essential for restoring your body.
During non-REM sleep, your body releases chemicals essential to healing. One of those chemicals is human growth hormone, the production of which is at its highest during sleep. Human growth hormone is important for tissue growth when you are young and tissue healing once you become an adult. Also during this stage, brain activity decreases, bre ...
