I always get my deepest and longest sleep in the month of December. Something about the long nights and colder weather really puts me into a hibernation mode. This week I’ve had three nights where my sleep exceeded 9 hours. That is unheard of for me. My normal night is closer to 7 to 7.5 hours sleep. My worst sleep is in late June when the days are the longest.
This week my back started hurting in the morning. Since I discovered the root cause of my back pain is psychological, I have eliminated 95% of it. When I do get a flareup, I look back at what might be upsetting me or if I sense a loss in control. Just that action fixes the remaining 5%. Well, this week was different.
Me sleeping at 2 days old
I did some searching and learned that back pain upon waking is common when you sleep too much. The general advice is to lose weight if you’re heavy (not applicable to me), change positions while sleeping (already do this) or sleep less (not during hibernation month). Another tip I read about, but find highly distracting, is putting a pillow or towel under your knees. I’ll take an hour or two of back pain if it means I get this quality of sleep.
The cool thing is that just knowing this is common has already reduced the duration of my morning back pain.