Many people living with chronic pain report difficulties with sleep. Pain makes getting comfortable in bed harder and can delay falling asleep. It can also reduce sleep continuity, which means increasing the amount of times you wake at night and waking you earlier than usual in the morning.
Understandably, people might assume that, while their pain persists, sleeping problems will also continue. Fortunately, this does not have to be the case – it is possible to get a decent night’s sleep despite ongoing pain.
Although your sleep problems might have started because of pain, if you have had sleeping difficulties for a long time (more than three months), pain is unlikely to be the only thing affecting your issues with sleep. Unhelpful thoughts, emotional reactions and coping strategies developed as a response to the initial sleep problems can all disrupt your sleep, even when the pain itself is well managed and no longer a trigger of insomnia. Sometimes people with chronic pain describe their insomnia as ‘having its own life’. This is fitting of the way in which other factors beyond pain can become more and more disruptive of sleep.
Our leaflet on 'Getting a good nights sleep' highlights these factors beyond pain that may be disrupting your sleep and provides tips on how you may be able to get a better night’s sleep.
Click here to download or request a posted copy: bit.ly/3QHuPXF
