The Missing Ingredients in Our Sleep Hygiene Plan

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Last Updated on October 24, 2024 by melissanreynolds

If you have fibromyalgia or other chronic pain condition, then you likely have trouble with sleep too. Insomnia is often comorbid or a significant symptom in the conditions that cause chronic pain.

the things missing from your sleep hygiene plan

Get to the point: Add pain management to the list.

More detail:

The regular sleep hygiene list might provide some help. But if we are in constant pain, then pain management has to go on the list. Especially if you have fibromyalgia.

What is insomnia?

Insomnia means to have trouble going to sleep, staying asleep, and/or waking too early. With fibromyalgia, it also means to have poor quality sleep. We have trouble getting to the deeper, restful stages of sleep. Which is where we need to get so our bodies can recover.

Here’s the regular sleep hygiene plan

  • Go to bed and get up around the same time
  • Have a mindful evening winddown
  • Try a protein based snack in the evening
  • Keep your bedroom cool and dark
  • Ensure your bed is comfortable and your pillow is correct for your needs
  • Don’t drink caffeine after lunch or alcohol near bedtime
  • Do gentle movement, before dinner

Here’s my two important additions

Managing pain is directly related to whether or not you’ll sleep. Even if you can knock yourself out with great sleep aids, you probably won’t get great quality sleep. I know when I sleep deeply, I wake with more pain because my neck struggles with being immobilized in one position for very long.

Pain make it difficult to get comfortable. It also fusses the nervous system. If your nervous system is fussed, you’re not getting good sleep.

There are some of us who are on all the medications, and it still doesn’t work. It sucks. It means we haven’t got the right holistic plan in place.

There are others, like me, who simply won’t or don’t take the medication. I have some kind of block that stops me recognizing how bad the pain is (20 years of several types of ongoing, undertreated pain will do that to you) and I have some kind of aversion to taking the medication, even if I think of it. It’s not great.

However we will not sleep well until we tackle pain.

Getting better includes managing pain, calming the nervous system and sleeping well. And all three are heavily related.

So check out this post on managing pain – include making your own proactive pain plan and add it to your sleep hygiene list.

For extra help with sleep, try my micro course

the things missing from your sleep hygiene plan
the things missing from your sleep hygiene plan

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