Can A Mattress Help With Chronic Pain?

Do you suffer from chronic pain? If you do, you understand just how debilitating it can be to everyday life. Living with chronic pain makes a good night’s sleep that much more important, yet harder to get. That’s why you need a mattress that can help manage your pain so you can sleep well and let your body recover. Thankfully, the right mattress can help mitigate your pain so you can sleep soundly through the night.

What Is Chronic Pain?

Chronic pain is considered discomfort that lasts for over three months. It’s one of the most common reasons why people seek medical care. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to treat as it can happen anywhere in your body and has countless causes. Chronic pain can come and go, or you might feel it all the time. It could be the result of an injury or come alongside another chronic illness, like arthritis. 

Many Americans suffer from chronic pain and it’s a debilitating condition. A study conducted in 2021 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that about 20.9% of U.S. adults (51.6 million people) experienced chronic pain.

How Does Chronic Pain Affect Sleep?

Chronic pain is bad enough during your waking hours, but it can also affect your sleep quality, too. According to an article from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, “Chronic pain is highly comorbid with sleep that is deficient in duration or quality, such as is seen in sleep disorders. Moreover, the pain-sleep relationship is a bidirectional one: pain can disrupt sleep, and short or disturbed sleep in turn lowers pain thresholds and increases spontaneous pain.”

A poor sleep cycle due to chronic pain often leaves a person in more pain. What’s worse, it can even bring about other health issues, such as a reduced immune system or poor mental health. 

How Can My Mattress Help With Chronic Pain?

One of the ways to reduce the discomfort and disruption to your sleep cycle caused by chronic pain is to create a comfortable sleeping environment for yourself. This starts with a mattress that will help manage your pain.

With the wide range of symptoms and causes for chronic pain, there’s no one-type-fits-all mattress solution. You need to consider your sleep position, where your pain is coming from, and how it might be soothed so you can sleep. For example, a back sleeper who suffers from chronic back pain would do well to sleep on a medium-firm mattress that offers spinal support and pressure relief. It might also be good to have a temperature-regulating layer so you don’t get overheated as you sleep, causing you further discomfort and even pain as you toss and turn.

If you suffer from chronic pain that’s disrupting your sleep, talk to your doctor to get a medical opinion. Then, come to one of Gardner Mattress’ showrooms to test out mattresses, talk to our craftspeople, and find a mattress that can help you sleep pain-free.