Get Enough Sleep to Help Reduce Your Pain

Restful Sleep Reduces Pain and Inflammation

Getting enough sleep can help reduce your pain, improve your quality of life and help you overcome diseases

Not only is sleep a fundamental human need, but it is also a necessity for people who experience aches or pains of any kind and should never be taken for granted. Sleep is so important, we naturally fall asleep when our body tells our brain that certain essential chemicals have been depleted and our muscles and ligaments are tired and in need of restoration.

The growing problem is that many of us rely on stimulants like coffee, tea and sodas to force ourselves to stay awake and continue working. We, therefore, stay up too late, get up too early, and continue to consume unhealthy amounts of toxic substances – night after night after night. For the better part of our adult lives, many of us are both sick AND tired through constantly starving our bodies of sleep.

Lack of sleep causes:

poor concentration,
slower reaction times,
decreased performance levels,
less ability to learn and compartmentalize new skills and knowledge,
more frequent memory lapses,
increases in simple injuries and accidents,
adverse changes in moods and behaviours,
increased frequency of headaches,
neck and shoulder pain, backaches,
fatigue
overload of toxic consumption.

This happens because during restful sleep our body is actually working to repair itself. The liver purifies the blood, the muscles repair, serotonin increases. Without ample sleep, these things do not happen at optimal levels. Our biological clock expects sleep to take over during the evening hours. We are genetically programmed to get up and lie down with the sun. It was the invention of artificial sources of light (candles and bulbs) that began our stressed-out drive for more working hours at the expense of much-needed rest.

What’s the big deal, you ask?

There is always, coffee, caffeine pills, cat naps, life is good getting by on only a few hours sleep per night. Well, not really. Did you know that in clinical tests rats die within a few weeks of sleep deprivation? Chronic fatigue, adrenal fatigue, attention deficit disorder, chronic migraine and headache, body aches and pain, mental illness, depression and anxiety are all in part caused – or made worse – by lack of sleep. And lack of sleep causes lower levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, placing you at risk for depression and suicidal thoughts.