Improving Sleep to Help Pain Conditions.

Poor Sleep - an Epidemic.

Can you recall the last time you woke up in the morning totally refreshed after an unbroken, 7-8 hours of sleep?
Two-thirds of adults throughout all developed nations fail to obtain an optimal 8 hours of nightly sleep making this a epidemic problem which impacts on all aspects of mental and physical health including how we feel pain.

Whilst the significant associations with insufficient sleep and physical diseases and mental disorders are seriously alarming, we can use this knowledge to our advantage and take small, simple steps feel better now and for the future.

Why We Sleep.

In his book Matthew Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and Director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory, describes how a lack of sleep negatively affects many chronic pain conditions. 
The latest sleep research gives us the knowledge we can use to boost your progress with treatment. In this blog I'll talk about why and how we can make small changes to improve our sleep quality to not only feel better in the coming few days but reduce the risks of lifestyle related dis-ease in the future.

Sleep Studies

Sleep studies are able to show us the patterns of sleep we go through by monitoring brain wave activity. The question of why we sleep has been a subject of great interest, given that insufficient sleep predicts all-cause mortality including your risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health conditions, we can confidently say it is one, if not the main foundational pillar of health.

I recently attended a seminar series about the neurobiology of pain conditions and it was the research on Overlapping Chronic Pain Conditions (OCPCs) that the presenter discussed that really peaked my interest. Most, if not all, of my clients at Unwind have this to some degree and when you listen to the interviews and TED talk with Matt Walker you really get an appreciation of you can make proactive, positive steps to turning the condition of your body around for yourself.

This is the great thing, it's free! All you have to do to start is see which ideas below you know you use improve your sleep and therefore have a knock-on affect for your...

• Chronic, reoccurring widespread pain conditions
• Inflammatory conditions
• Diabetes and blood sugar control
• Weight loss
• Sports performance
• Concentration levels
• Overall feeling of wellbeing

Podcasts & Reading 

Rangan Chatterjee speaks to Professor Matthew Walker about why sleep is so important to our health and longevity and simple 'hacks' to improve the quality of your sleep.

Professor Matt Walker presents the current understanding of why we sleep and the impact on disease and cognitive decline.
If you prefer to read, here's a link to his compelling book, 'Why We Sleep'.

5 Ways To Improve Your Sleep.

Pick just one or all five of these tips to begin transforming the quality and quantity of your sleep...

1. Give yourself enough time to digest your food before bed. Sleep is a time for rest and repair of the body, brain and mind. This cannot happen properly if you have a belly full of undigested food.
2. For good sleep to occur our core body temperature must drop slightly and a cool bedroom will help this happen.
3. For normal melatonin release in the brain we need light levels to be very low. Blue light from screens signals to our brain that it's time to be wide awake. This is courtesy of millions of years of evolution and cannot be cheated.
4. Caffeine has a half-life of approximately 10 hours. It is a psychoactive drug that affects the amount of the various stages of sleep that you get at night. Even if you stay asleep all night after a coffee in the evening, your time in deep sleep is very likely being affected.
5. Exercising (both cardiovascular and resistance) is so important to overall health and sleep. Ideally exercise in the morning. If you only have time for exercise in the evenings you can reduce your core body temperature before bed by having a hot bath or sauna. This brings blood to the surface of the body and aids cooling the core.

What happens to the body on poor sleep.

• Sleeping less than 6-7 hours a night massively impacts the functioning of your immune system.
• Inadequate sleep for just one week disrupts blood sugar levels and drive us to pick at high calorie and sugary foods. It affects your risk of cardiovascular disease, major psychiatric conditions including depression and  anxiety.
• Too little sleep also surpasses a hormone which signals satiety in the brain meaning we want to eat more than we need.
• Insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer's disease. The above are a few of the opening lines of the informative book 'Why We Sleep. The New Science of Sleep and Dreams.' written by Matthew Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley and Director of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory.

If you enjoyed listening to Dr Rangan Chatterjee, check out his Feel Better, Live More podcast for other great conversations with health professionals and researchers.

Feel Better, Live More Podcast