How to Improve Sleep When You Deal With Chronic Pain

If you deal with chronic pain, you know how important sleep can be to helping you feel better. 

When you get a poor night’s sleep, your symptoms might feel worse. You might have a harder time regulating your emotions, and find it harder to complete everyday tasks. Improving sleep quality is often a process of trial and error, but it can be an especially important part of the chronic pain toolkit. 

Why is sleep so important?

Sleep is one of our basic biological functions, and we can’t survive without it. Sleep is essential to our physical and mental functioning. Sleep allows our bodies time to repair and to reset for the next day, and can even support our immune functioning. 

Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to serious health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. In addition, when you don’t get enough sleep, it can be harder to think clearly and to do the everyday things that are required of you. 

Chronic pain impacts many areas of life, and sleep is no exception. Chronic pain can make it harder to get comfortable enough to fall asleep, and pain can wake you up during the night, reducing the amount of sleep you get.

If you’re dealing with chronic pain, a good night’s sleep might feel impossible. Here are some things to try to improve your sleep when you deal with chronic pain: 

Talk to your doctor about sleep 

Sleep is a critical bodily function, and when you have sleep issues it’s best to make your doctor aware. That might seem overwhelming, especially as someone who deals with chronic pain and has to deal with many medical providers already. There are some medical interventions that can make sleep easier, though, so it’s important to bring it up with your primary care physician to see if there are any options that can help you.

For example, sleep apnea can make it harder to sleep deeply, and wearing a CPAP machine while you sleep can help you sleep more deeply. Get a sleep study done if possible. You can do sleep studies from home a lot of the time now. They may also be able to help you find a medication that works for you to help you sleep better. 

Use light filter settings on your devices

There’s a lot of advice out there about not using screens in the evening because of the exposure to blue light that interrupts sleep. However, it’s much easier said than done to put down your devices after a certain time. Has anyone ever actually stopped using their phone before bed? Sometimes that’s not reasonable. 

If you are looking at your phone or at a device before bed, try using the built in color filters that most devices have to help block out the blue light. You can also try wearing blue light blocking glasses if you don’t have a filter on your device. 

Develop a wind down routine 

Developing a routine that signals to your brain that it’s time to wind down can be helpful in improving your sleep. See how it feels to stretch, meditate, journal, or read as you wind down before bed. 

If you’re able to, taking a hot bath with epsom salts can help you become more sleepy and help with winding down. If you don’t have a tub, try soaking your feet in some warm water with epsom salts to help you begin to wind down. You can also try drinking a warm beverage, like tea (make sure to choose a kind of tea that doesn’t have caffeine) to help signal to your brain that it’s time for sleep. 

Try to stick to a general bedtime

Another way to help signal to yourself that it’s time to sleep is to stick to a specific bedtime. It can be hard to go to sleep at the same time every night when your symptoms are causing you pain, but over time it gets easier. It’s going to be hard to sleep when your brain is wired, so it might take some time to get to a bedtime that works for you. Try shifting things by 5 minutes at a time and work toward the time you’d ideally like to go to sleep. 

It’s also important to be kind to yourself when you can’t stick to that bedtime. Being hard on yourself isn’t going to make it any easier to sleep. 

Use pillows to help support your body

Waking up feeling worse than when you went to sleep isn’t a fun experience. Sometimes movement during sleep can help contribute to pain during the day. Try using pillows to help support you as you sleep. 

Consider using a neck pillow for neck pain or a body pillow to help keep yourself propped up in a way that won’t increase your pain. Some people also sleep with a heating pad or an electric blanket on the parts of their body that tend to cause pain. Some of them have timers so you can make sure it keeps you warm all night. 

Set up your sleeping place for success

Studies show that sleeping in a cooler room can help with getting deeper sleep, so try sleeping with your thermostat turned down a bit lower or with a fan on you. You can also try using white noise, either from a fan or a noise machine, to help create an environment where you can sleep. 

Something else that might help is to be able to turn your electronics or lights on and off from your phone or using a remote. That way, when you’re comfy in bed, you don’t have to get back up to turn off the lights. 

Use your pain relief toolkit

When you’re dealing with chronic pain, sometimes you need to try multiple ways to manage it so you can make it through the day and night. 

As someone with chronic pain, you probably have your go-to ways to manage your pain, like using a TENs unit or using a pain relief gel. See what you have on hand that can help make you more comfortable through the night. 

Are you looking for more support as you deal with chronic pain? Our therapists can help. We have therapists who can support you with chronic illness, chronic pain, &  medical stressors. Contact us today to make an appointment!