What’s the connection between pain and trouble sleeping?

Pain causes a lot of anxiety and worry, which can impact the quality of your sleep. Watch sleep expert Michael Breus, PhD, discuss how cognitive behavioral therapy can be an effective treatment for this type of anxiety issue that can affect sleep.

Transcript

00:00

Lack of sleep changes the perception of pain drastically. [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:09

Sleep is the trump card. It's interesting. I see people come to me all the time for surgery. They haven't slept in probably 6 to 12 months more than four

00:17

or five, six hours a night. And just even going to the basics, we know that lack of sleep changes the perception of pain

00:24

drastically. Rarely can you get sleep in the face of chronic pain without medications. My first step is always aggressive medications.

00:31

Within two to four weeks, people have to be sleeping, otherwise the rest of the project does not work. I have a very unique perspective

00:37

because two days a month I work in a pain center, because people in pain have very difficult time sleeping. And over the course of the last few years,

00:43

here's what I've learned. People in pain have a lot of anxiety. They get up to that bed, and that's usually the only place

00:50

that they can go where they don't actually feel a whole lot of pain. But there's anxiety there because they think, oh, my gosh, what happens if I get in bed tonight and I do feel pain?

00:58

Or what happens if, in the middle of the night, I twist or I turn and I cause myself more pain? So what we have to look at is how

01:04

does sleep and anxiety and pain intercorrelate? And what we now know is cognitive behavioral therapy

01:11

is one of the easiest ways to be able to help somebody with that, to change those thoughts and fears before bed and lower that level of anxiety.