Falling asleep and staying asleep is even more difficult when you are experiencing pain. Whether its frequent headaches, a sprain, pinched nerve or an old injury come back to life, it’s even more critical to make the effort to sleep well as doing gives your body the strength to heal quicker and cope much better, thanks to the restorative phases of sleep.
Remember that the link between pain and sleep is still being explored, but from what we know pain definitely hurts sleep quality and increases the length of hospital stays. To reduce your stress and keep pain from completely destroying your snooze, try these sleep tips that were shared by SparkPeople:
- Consider adjusting your pillow: If you are experiencing neck or back pain, give an orthopedic (contoured) pillow a try to provide you with sufficient support. Your sleeping position can cause even more discomfort at night, especially sleeping on your tummy, as your spine is arched and your neck is twisted. Use a body pillow to help you maintain a new sleeping position to ease pain.
- Learn the art of mindfulness: This calming technique has an amazing ability to help distract you from the pain that is keeping you awake. While focusing on your breathing, focus on positive thoughts or an ideal scenario, strengthen your ability to stay in the moment from seconds to minutes. The more you practice mindfulness, the better you’ll get!
- Create a new sleep strategy: Your habits throughout the day, especially in the hours near your bedtime, have a significant impact on your shut-eye. With pain already a disruption, it’s best to minimize or eliminate any other problems. Habits such as regular exercise, limiting caffeine and alcohol, avoiding naps, maintaining a consistent bedtime and wake up time, and putting away electronics 90 minutes before you tuck in, can improve your snooze tremendously.
- Ease muscle tension: Whether it’s taking a hot bath, stretching, meditating, aromatherapy or music, engage in soothing activities in the last couple of hours before bedtime to help relieve your mind and muscles of sleep-preventing tension.
- Improve your attitude: Obsessing about pain and losing sleep can make your problems prevent you from collecting the shut-eye you need. Keep yourself distracted with fun activities and hobbies, even simple activities such as reading or listening to music can be enough to keep your worrisome mind occupied.
- Ask your doctor about supplements: Melatonin has been used for years to remedy insomnia and jet lag, and can be beneficial for a short period of time. While you don’t need a prescription, consult your physician about usage and if it could work for your situation.
- Cross other medical conditions off your list: Talk to your doctor about your daily pain levels, specifically any spike of pain that occurs around your bedtime. Other sleep disorders or medical conditions could be also interfering with your snooze and getting those under control could improve your snooze and may reduce the pain you’ve been experiencing.
No matter what life throws at you, sleep is always ready to help see you through! The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults collect 7-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night to boost their overall quality of life, including more happiness, better health and endless work productivity!
Our Gallery Furniture sleep experts are all sleep-certified and ready to share incredible knowledge to help change your life as you find the perfect mattress to support your needs. Come experience the comfort of the quality mattresses we’ve got on the floor at our 6006 North Freeway location TODAY!
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