The quality of your sleep affects your musculoskeletal comfort
When you sleep, your body goes through a long period of inactivity, lasting from the moment you fall asleep until you wake up. Your muscles and joints are at rest throughout the night, so they may feel ‘stiff’ when you wake up. This phenomenon is likely to be much more pronounced if you suffer from osteoarthritis. Even without osteoarthritis, stiffness and pain are still possible, but they are generally milder and last for much a shorter time. Sleep disturbances can also cause muscle and joint tension upon waking. It’s a vicious circle: the poorer your sleep, the more pain you experience the next morning and the harder it is for you to sleep the next night (9).
Osteoarthritis causes characteristic joint stiffness
Osteoarthritis is a condition that affects the entire joint and is well known for causing joint stiffness upon waking. This results in the sensation that the joints are too stiff to move normally. This stiffness usually lasts less than 30 minutes; however, the discomfort can sometimes persist beyond that. The intensity and duration of this phenomenon depend on the balance between the inflammatory and mechanical components of the condition: the more pronounced the inflammatory component, the more severe the discomfort will be.
Muscle aches and soreness are often to blame
What’s distinctive here is that muscle aches and soreness aren’t limited to the moment you wake up. On the contrary, they cause fluctuating pain over several days in a row. However, it’s often in the morning that they seem at their worst. Once again, the stiffness that follows a night’s inactivity could be to blame. The first movements of the morning are generally the most painful of the whole day. Once the body gets going, the discomfort subsides. Again, this is merely symptomatic relief: just because you no longer feel your aches and pains does not mean that the associated micro-tears in the muscles have disappeared.
Read also: How can you prevent and relieve muscle soreness with essential oils?
Other causes of stiffness upon waking
Inflammatory arthritis: this differs from osteoarthritis in its origin, which is fundamentally inflammatory and immunological. Osteoarthritis always has a mechanical basis, accompanied by an inflammatory component of varying severity. Other forms of arthritis, such as rheumatoid arthritis, can cause even more severe and persistent stiffness upon waking.
Fibromyalgia: this is a chronic condition that causes stiffness and widespread pain, including muscle and joint tension upon waking. It also causes intense fatigue, which can contribute to increased musculoskeletal discomfort. It should be noted that this condition is six times more common in women than in men (10).
Certain endocrine disorders, in particular hypothyroidism. The latter tends to contribute to diffuse muscle pain and joint discomfort, which are more noticeable in the morning. It may also be a case of adrenal insufficiency, associated with a cortisol deficiency and therefore increased inflammatory sensitivity.
