Sleep deprivation may be one of the major factors that can increase the brain’s sensitivity to pain.
For three weeks, 17 subjects were intentionally deprived of proper sleep. Before and after the weeks of sleep deprivation, they were tested for spontaneous pain, temporal summation of pain, heat-tolerance pain, and cold-tolerance pain. After being deprived of sleep, the pain that subjects felt was higher. Interestingly, a few days of recovery sleep was not enough to restore normal function.
Conclusions
Many factors can influence one’s perception of pain, and it appears that sleep is a major one. Individuals dealing with pain should consider the role that their sleep may be having on their symptoms.
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