10 Tips to Overcome Morning Stiffness

10 Tips to Overcome Morning Stiffness by Robert Chu, L.Ac. QME

Perhaps you’ve helped your friend move yesterday, or you have fibromyalgia, or arthritis, or just plain sore from gardening, you might find it hard to get about in the morning. According to the American College of Rheumatology, Fibromyalgia affects 3 to 6 million, or as many as one in 50 Americans, with seven times more the frequency in women than in men. According to the NHIS, by 2030, an estimated 67 million Americans ages 18 years or older are projected to have doctor-diagnosed arthritis. That’s certainly a lot!

It can take you hours to "warm up" or "move easily" so to speak, and generally, most people reach for muscle relaxants, pain relievers, or topical creams and sprays. And it’s doubly hard when you have to take care of the kids or get going to work.

The basic causes of morning stiffness are lack of exercise, being overweight, having a poor diet, not sleeping properly, a prevalence of coldness or dampness in the environment. Lack of exercise in general does not allow you to rid the body of toxins which can build up in the joints and cause gout. Being overweight is difficult because you are carrying unnecessary weight, which puts a strain on joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments. A poor diet, generally high in simple carbs and causes weak muscles, bad posture and lethargy. Poor sleep and poor sleeping posture can lock your body in a bad position for hours, causing reduced blood flow to the local muscles, and a buildup of lactic acid, causing stiffness. A cold or damp environment causes muscle stiffness because the coldness or dampness affects the blood flow to the area.

You can be happy to know you’re not the only one who is painfully stiff in the morning, and what is causing this can be avoided or corrected... here are 10 things you can do.

1) Take a hot shower. This serves as a means to induce sweating and release the muscles, as well as increase the blood circulation.

2) Do some easy stretches while lying in bed, then sitting up in bed. This will stretch and loosen the muscles and help flush them with more blood.

3) Promote good sleeping habits. This means that sleep time is not think time or time to think about relationships, work, the kids, etc. Get those out of the way first before you sleep.

4) Drink the best water you can get. Often the tap water in our cities is not the freshest or safest. Even cities like Los Angeles have traces of psychiatric medicines and estrogenic-like compounds. Drink either bottled water or reverse osmosis filtered water.

5) Force yourself to do some gentle deep knee bends. You don’t have to go all the way down, and the idea is to do these assisted with a chair or table, or counter. These exercise almost 90% of the skeletal muscles. Find a counter, table or chair and use your hands for support. Then exhale and squat as low as you can go, then inhale and stand up again. Do 10 of these and these will get the morning blood flowing.

6) Sleep with a portable heater in your room if your bedroom is particularly drafty or damp.

7) Eat better. Cut down on simple carbohydrates, and start reading labels. Simply eliminate the foods with artificial color, artificial flavors and artificial sweeteners (High fructose corn syrup, crystalline fructose, and aspartame) and enriched white flour. If you don’t know what it is, or have difficulty pronouncing it, avoid ingesting it.

8) Get some therapy for stress or emotional problems, so that you’re not lying awake all night thinking about your problems. Learn how to deal with toxic people in your life.

9) Get some regular exercise. The idea is to go out and do some regular exercise, as all exercise is cumulative. Even a simple routine of 10000 steps a day (buy a pedometer!) will improve your health greatly!

10) Be the fashion police! You want to dress appropriately for these cold months, and you might do well to sleep in flannel pajamas or sweats.

These simple tips followed with a little dedication, along with some minor lifestyle changes and changes to the living environment, can help you overcome morning stiffness in no time.