Morning Aches & Pains Making you Feel Older Than you Are?

Waking up and feeling pain as one of the first cognitive experiences of the day can start to become a real burden on people’s lives, it can be hard to get into a good headspace for the day ahead when its painful to put your shoes on. Often waking up on the wrong side of the bed is blamed for a bad mood or short temper, when in actual fact, it might be the wrong side of the inflammatory cycle.

Our body is constantly internally regulating all the different systems within in order to achieve optimal health, and our circadian clock is what helps to assign these systems to regulate at different times of the day. It essentially sets the work roster for the day. At the start of our sleep cycle the circadian clock activates the night time immune response with pro-inflammatory molecules, it gets to work, then in the early hours of the morning an anti-inflammatory signal is sent to downregulate this response before we wake. It is this anti-inflammatory signal to reduce immune system activity that gets lost in cases of chronic inflammation. This results in elevated levels of inflammation which travels around the body through the blood stream and can end up in our muscles and joints, leaving us feeling stiff and sore upon waking. Generally, these symptoms will tend to ease off in the first 30-120 mins of the day as the body gets moving and starts to clear some of that inflammation away from those tissues.

By this point if you experience these aches and pains you’re probably wondering ‘why has this happened to me?’. Like a lot of components of health, its multi-faceted. There are 3 key lifestyle factors that influence the immune system and the inflammation it produces; sleep, stress and diet. Please note if you have an autoimmune disorder then there are different processes at play and although these factors may influence your symptoms, it is likely being driven by other factors.

·      Sleep is critical to establishing the circadian clock and poor/inconsistent sleep cycles will affect its ability to regulate the overnight immune and inflammatory cycle. It is important to create good sleep hygiene (term given to describe sleep habits/routines) to help create consistency within the circadian rhythm. Getting the adequate 7-9 hours, similar bedtime each night, dark and cool environment and limiting screen time before bed are some examples. The latter is extra important in todays society as screen light can delay the activation of the immune response and over time may contribute to dysregulation of the circadian rhythm, particularly if the screen time is in the lead up to bed time.

·      Stress has the ability to affect the inflammatory cycle and it can work both ways, being both pro & anti-inflammatory. In acute/small doses, stress is actually anti-inflammatory, this is because under acute stress inflammation takes a back seat while the stressor at hand is dealt with. However chronic stress starts to become pro-inflammatory, it’s a mechanism that is too long to explain in this blog, but basically the ongoing stress leads to the dysregulation of the cycle through the sheer volume of stress over time without respite. So now that stress you been experiencing throughout the day has affected the way your immune system functions overnight leaving you with aches and pains in the morning. No doubt further increasing stress levels, a cruel cycle.

·      Diet can be a major driver of inflammation in the body, certain foods can trigger an inflammatory response that goes beyond just your gastrointestinal systems. Foods that include sugar/high fructose corn syrup, refined carbohydrates, trans fats, vegetable oils, alcohol and processed meats all create an inflammatory response in the body. Not only will these foods directly cause inflammation but it is thought that the inflammation can disrupt the circadian rhythm, further altering the immune response, again another cruel cycle.

If you are finding that the morning aches and pains are localised to one or two areas of the body it is possible that you have some structural or functional changes within the body which are overloading these tissues throughout the course of the day. This functional overload may predispose the area to accumulate inflammation, contributing to the pain felt in the mornings. If this is the case, it is worthwhile seeking an assessment from your local Osteopath who specialise in treating structural and functional changes.

To summarise, if you are waking in the morning with aches and pains making you feel 20 years older than you actually are it is worth taking some time to analyse your sleep, stress and diet as these factors may be contributing to your symptoms. Trying to create some good sleep routines/hygiene, manage stress levels and remove some of the inflammatory ingredients listed above may all help to regulate your circadian rhythm back to normal to allow your immune system to function properly. Don’t expect results immediately as it will take time for your body to adjust and if symptoms persist visit a health professional. It is also important to mention again that some auto immune conditions may give similar symptoms, if there is a family history of these conditions or you suspect there may be something else influencing your body, visit your GP for further examination.