Aches and pains after a night's rest can be due to a variety of reasons, including an old mattress, a heavy workout the previous day, or even a recent injury. If that's the case, there may not be much you can do to change the morning aches. However, there could be other underlying health reasons you're unaware of, too!
Morning body aches can be caused by a lack of good quality sleep, which deprives your body's tissues and cells of repair time. An effective way to improve sleep is with exercise, which tires the body and reduces stress, helping to improve both the quality of your sleep, and the amount of sleep that you get each night.
Common causes of pain at night include: Hormone levels – production of the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol drops to its lowest point at around midnight, so this could see discomfort rise for certain ailments. Sleep position – staying in one position all night can cause your joints to get stiff.
Fatigue and arthritis
Fatigue can be linked to many types of arthritis and related conditions. It's commonly a symptom of autoimmune conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, reactive arthritis and lupus. In autoimmune conditions the immune system mistakenly attacks the body's own healthy tissues.
If you don't have a fever or other symptoms, and you experience body aches often or for prolonged periods of time, make an appointment with your PCP. It could be a sign of a drug reaction or a more severe and chronic underlying medical condition, such as an autoimmune disease.
Body aches are a common symptom of viral infections, such as influenza and COVID-19. But other types of infections can also cause whole body aches, including Lyme disease (a bacterial infection transmitted through tick bites) and malaria (caused by a parasite).
Fibromyalgia is diagnosed based primarily on having pain all over the body, along with other symptoms. Currently, there are no specific laboratory or imaging tests for fibromyalgia.
If you suffer from muscular pain, the best sleep position will really depend on where your pain is concentrated. Generally speaking, though, lying on your back or side is preferable. You'll notice that, regardless of where your aches and pains are concentrated, it is not advised that you sleep on your front.
You know what I mean: the stiffness and dull aches (and accompanying grunts and groans) that occur after you wake up. These feelings often go away in about five or 10 minutes. Some mornings are worse than others, and sometimes I awaken stiffness-free.
Muscle pain that is felt throughout your whole body is most often caused by an infection, such as the flu. Other causes include more-serious conditions, such as some diseases or health conditions that affect the muscles. Muscle pain also may be a side effect of certain medicines.
Waking up with aching legs can be causes by lifestyle factors – for example, long periods of walking or standing the previous day can leave legs sore. Poor sleep can also contribute to leg ache, as our bodies need a good night's sleep to recover from any muscle soreness.
Stress can cause your muscles to tense up — and over time, that can lead to pain and soreness in virtually any part of the body. The most common stress-related aches and pains are in the neck, back, and shoulders.
An ache is usually not extremely strong, so you can try to ignore it. Pain is usually stronger, more sudden, and more difficult to ignore. You would feel pain when you cut yourself or hit your head on something. If you exercise and you injure yourself – break a bone or tear a muscle – you would feel a sudden pain.
Aches and pains in our bones, joints, and muscles may be caused by everyday wear and tear, overuse, or aging. This pain can also be the result of injury or illness. No matter the cause, the pain medicine experts at Weill Cornell Medicine can help alleviate pain and improve quality of life.
In addition to muscle and bone weakness, our tendons and ligaments also lose some of their flexibility and elasticity, leaving us more prone to injuries and falls. The conditions that cause these aches and pains the most are osteopenia, osteoporosis, and osteoarthritis.
You should always be cautious about pain, especially if it is severe or persists afterwards because serious injuries could be a culprit, Dr. Nguyen advises. These include a stress fracture or tear, or they can be signs of other health issues. If it's something more serious, medical attention will be needed.
Myositis (my-o-SY-tis) is a rare type of autoimmune disease that inflames and weakens muscle fibers. Autoimmune diseases occur when the body's own immune system attacks itself. In the case of myositis, the immune system attacks healthy muscle tissue, which results in inflammation, swelling, pain, and eventual weakness.
A vitamin D deficiency can affect both physical and mental health, but many people have low levels of vitamin D without realizing. The physical symptoms of a deficiency may include muscle pain in the joints, including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pain, which often occurs in the knees, legs, and hips.
Fibromyalgia affects as many as 4 million Americans 18 and older. The average age range at which fibromyalgia is diagnosed is 35 to 45 years old, but most people have had symptoms, including chronic pain, that started much earlier in life. Fibromyalgia is more common in women than in men.