Sleep Disturbance and how it's related to Chronic Pain/Issues

It is not uncommon to have a chronic issue – whether its chronic pain, tension, stiffness. Unfortunately, the discomfort and issues aren’t isolated to the area of pain. Eventually the issues spread throughout the body affecting everything from additional areas of pain, mental state, and more subtly your sleep in Sleep Disturbance

"An ever growing problem"

Sleep disturbance is an ever growing problem. According to the American Psychiatric Association: https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/sleep-disorders/what-are-sleep-disorders

“About one-third of adults report some insomnia symptoms, 10-15 percent report problems with functioning during the daytime and 6-10 percent have symptoms severe enough to meet criteria for insomnia disorder.”

There are some arguments that the percentage is higher and growing.

Sleep-related Comorbidities

The most concerning aspect of sleep disorders are the comorbidities that only recently are a focus of study. One study from LWW states:

“Insomnia and hypersomnia are highly co-morbid with medical conditions, such as chronic pain and diabetes, as well as with various cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, urinary and neurological disorders. Restless legs syndrome and periodic leg movement syndrome have been associated with iron deficiency, kidney disease, diabetes, and neurological, autoimmune, cardiovascular and respiratory disorders. Rapid eye movement behavior disorder has been described as an early manifestation of serious central nervous system diseases; thus, close neurological monitoring of patients referring with this complaint is indicated.”

https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/abstract/2011/07000/medical_comorbidity_of_sleep_disorders.16.aspx

Chronic Pain decreases Sleep efficiency

Unfortunately there isn’t enough information about the causation of sleep disturbance other than sleep apnea. However, Matthew Walker, a Neurophysiology PHD and professor/sleep scientist at UC Berkeley offers a little insight: “Chronic pain can decrease sleep efficiency, dropping it as low as 70%. That is, living with chronic pain can mean spending 30% of your night wide awake.”

A Solution for the pain

Fortunately, there are methods to address the chronic pain that can be feeding into your sleep issues and that’s something Emergent Healing can help you with. Emergent Healing’s 3-Prong therapy – combining acupuncture, massage, and home therapy – you can develop a routine and new normal away from the chronic pain and thereby improve your sleep and overall health.