It is well known that poor sleep and pain, especially chronic pain, are growing health problems. Yet the relationship between the two is less understood.
Dr David Klyne from UQ’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences explains the link between chronic pain and the role sleep has to play.
The link between sleep and pain
Traditionally, it’s assumed that pain interferes with sleep, however Dr Klyne’s research suggests that’s not necessarily the case.
“Emerging information actually suggests the opposite, that poor sleep increases and maintains pain,” Dr Klyne said.
“In up to 88 per cent of cases, poor sleep co-occurs with chronic pain and is often associated with pain severity.”
“As a major leap in understanding this relationship, we recently provided preclinical evidence that poor sleep actually facilitates the development and maintenance of chronic pain.”
“This development is exciting as there is the possibility through further research that interventions aimed at sleep could be developed to help improve pain.”
Chronic pain and poor sleep individually affect around 30 to 50 per cent of the population.
Through his research, Dr Klyne is exploring the relationship between sleep and pain, by monitoring people’s nervous and immune responses in clinical trials.
“We will use head devices to monitor sleep patterns in people living with chronic pain, while also conducting blood and saliva tests to look at patients’ hormonal, neural and immune responses,” Dr Klyne said.
“We’ll observe how their nervous and immune systems respond to a period of good sleep and a period of poor disrupted sleep, which will be achieved by participants setting alarms at intermittent times throughout the night."
How does exercise and sleep impact pain?
Both improved sleep and exercise are known to positively impact health and wellbeing.
In fact, they are key to maintaining positive mental health outcomes and they can significantly influence mood, self-efficacy, fatigue, stress and diet.
Dr David Klyne said changes in these factors could evoke an array of physiological responses that could impact pain.
“Sleep and exercise can help to reduce inflammation which can potentially lead to changes in the peripheral and central nervous systems that lower pain,” Dr Klyne said.
“For example, we preclinically demonstrated that aerobic exercise protects against the effects of poor sleep on pain via containing neuroimmune responses that occur with poor sleep.
“It is also likely that the combination of exercise and interventions to improve sleep, would have an additive effect on pain reduction via this same pathway.
“We are testing this hypothesis right now in a clinical trial evaluating the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia either alone or in combination with an aerobic exercise plan for managing chronic pain.”
People with back pain needed for study
Dr Klyne is also currently seeking participants for a study aimed as understanding what factors influence day-to-day back pain.
Participants in the study will be asked to wear a wrist-worn device for 3 months to monitor their sleep and physical activity, as well as answer questions about their pain and general condition via an app on their smartphone.
A second phase of the study would involve capturing highly detailed information about their sleep, movement, and immune and nervous system activity.
People interested can find out more via this article.
