Made With RA: How to Get the Sleep You Need With RA
Rest is key to functioning well with rheumatoid arthritis, but what do you do when your RA is often what keeps you up at night? In my new column for HealthCentral, I share tips to get the sleep you need:
“WHEN IS THE last time you had a good night’s sleep? The kind that has you falling into a deep and soothing slumber that continues uninterrupted until you wake up feeling rested and ready to take on the world. For many people with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), that experience is a pipe dream, yet so much of our ability to function and cope with this condition depends on having good sleep quality. That overnight uninterrupted sleep is when your body and mind heal so they can work better the next day. When that process is interrupted, your ability to keep going deteriorates day by day. Lack of sleep may cause an increase in pain, inflammation, and symptoms of brain fog. So, what can you do to get better sleep? I’m sharing some of the techniques and remedies that have helped me get a good night’s sleep.
But first, let’s take a look at some of the factors that can mess with your sleep. A recent study in the journal Arthritis Care & Research showed that almost two-thirds of people who have RA also have sleep problems. Reasons for this range from sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea and restlessness, to a phenomenon known as short sleep; that is, sleep less than six hours due to an inability to fall asleep or having fragmented sleep. Of the participants in the study, 46% reported having short sleep! That’s a lot of people trying to live their lives while sleep-deprived. For me, that has meant decades of not being able to get comfortable enough to fall asleep, enduring nightly painsomnia (a term created by the chronic illness community for insomnia due to pain), and almost always having fatigue and brain fog. If you’re reading this, you probably know how difficult it is to be present with your loved ones and in your life when you are perpetually exhausted.
The following are some of the things that have helped me sleep better.”
Read my tips for getting better sleep with RA on HealthCentral.
Tag: arthritis, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, pain, rheumatoid arthritis, rheumatoid disease
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Short sleep is just killing me. I feel like I sleep in shifts and none of it is fantastic. I have tired everything. I have invited Sheryl to just hit me in the head to knock me out. While she does hit me in the head it is never hard enough to knock me out.
I have tired sleep medicine, it works for a few nights then the impact wears out, exercise, my body says yeah give me more, while I yawn, reading, a new bed, an old bed, I am telling you nothing helps. But, you are right, I continue to purse my dream of a good nights sleep.
I can sleep pretty well when cooking shows are on TV. It seems Sheryl is threatening to make me watch them all night every night.
Lene save me, I cannot take 12 hours of cooking shows. 🙂
It is so hard to get ahead of pain and all the rest when you don’t get a good night ‘s sleep. It really sucks. I will say that CBD oil has been very effective for me, so if you haven’t tried that, might be your last ditch effort? If all fails, maybe the cooking shows will bore you so senseless that you fall asleep…?