You roll out of bed and ask yourself, “Why does my body hurt when I wake up?” Sound familiar?

If you experience aches and pains after getting up in the morning, there are various possible causes, and it could be due to multiple reasons.

Fortunately, by altering some of your lifestyle and sleeping habits, you can make changes to help prevent those morning aches.

8 Reasons Why Your Body Hurts When You Wake Up

Waking up in pain isn’t uncommon, and determining the cause isn’t always easy. Let’s explore eight factors that can affect your body and muscles when you wake up.

Stress and Anxiety

Stress and anxiety can result in inflammation in your body, which can cause stiffness and muscle aches, especially after lying still all night. The best way to reduce stress is to focus on your mental health.

Whether it’s exercising, consulting with a therapist, meditating, or anything else that helps you, your mental health also affects your physical health, and finding ways to ease your tension is essential for your overall well-being.

Plus, once you take care of what’s stressing you out, you may notice that your body no longer hurts when you get out of bed in the morning.

Are stress and anxiety making your body hurt in the morning? See if CBD can help.

Poor Quality Mattress

Another common reason why your body hurts right after waking up is your mattress. Most mattresses last a maximum of ten years, after which you’ll notice signs of a poor mattress (like sagging and having less support).

When choosing a mattress, it’s crucial to consider what you want out of it — do you need something that soothes persistent back pain, or would you rather have one that offers pressure point relief?

Either way, you should take a few for a test run and find the mattress that gives your body the support it needs.

Your Sleeping Position

Everyone’s ideal sleeping position is different, and sleeping in the wrong one for your body can cause aches and pains in the morning. Most people do best sleeping on their side, especially those with back pain, sleep breathing disorders, or acid reflux.

It can be challenging to determine if your sleeping position is the cause of your morning stiffness. Luckily, your regular doctor can help identify if your body’s soreness is from how you sleep or if the cause lies elsewhere.

Your Weight

Unfortunately, being overweight is a common reason why your body aches upon waking. Carrying extra weight puts pressure on your neck and back, resulting in pain. It can also cause sleep breathing disorders, impacting your sleep quality.

While losing weight seems like an “easy” answer to waking up with body pain, those aches make maintaining a weight loss routine even more difficult.

Your doctor can help you make small daily changes that make a significant difference over time — it’s better to slowly lose weight in a healthy way than to try losing as much as possible as fast as you can.

Related: Naturally Relieve Forearm Soreness

Sleep Breathing Disorders

People with sleep breathing disorders may stop breathing in their sleep, causing a lack of oxygen. This lack of oxygen can lead to your body hurting when you wake up — it’s essential to help your body repair itself overnight.

Headaches in the morning, sleepiness during the day, and body pain upon waking are all common signs of a sleep-breathing disorder.

Causes of these disorders include being overweight, aging, family history, substance abuse, nasal congestion, and underlying medical conditions. Sleep breathing disorders can cause serious health issues, including stroke and heart disease.

Illness or Infection

One common reason for morning stiffness that we don’t often think about is being sick; it causes inflammation in your body, leading to muscle aches. Even a mild cold can lead to aches and pains in the morning.

Luckily, this cause is temporary, and you can help it by getting more rest, eating healthy, and staying hydrated.

Dehydration

Speaking of staying hydrated, dehydration can cause serious problems in your body, taking a toll on your overall health. 

Our bodies need water to function, and dehydration is a common reason people experience muscular aches and pains when they wake up — ensure you get enough water and electrolytes throughout your day.

Vitamin D Deficiency

If you don’t soak up enough sun, which is extremely common during winter months, you won’t get enough vitamin D for your body to make calcium.

And because calcium helps our bones and organs function, a deficiency can easily result in morning muscle aches and pains. Your doctor may recommend that you start taking a vitamin D supplement if you aren’t getting enough naturally.

3 Ways to Stop Waking Up With Body Aches and Stiffness

We love sleep — unless we know we’re going to wake up in pain; then, it becomes something we dread. Plus, the more pain you have, the more difficult it is to get quality sleep, which leads to even more pain.

Ask Your Doctor for a Sleep Study

Remember when we discussed sleep breathing disorders and mentioned they can cause serious health issues in addition to causing you to wake up with aches and pains?

These disorders can be scary but, luckily, are easy to test for; your doctor can recommend an at-home sleep test or lab study if they believe a sleep breathing disorder might be causing you problems.

Try a New Pillow or Mattress

Sometimes, a new pillow is all you need. Finding a pillow with the right balance of stiffness and softness that aligns your spine and neck can prevent muscle tightness from occurring in your sleep.

If that doesn’t work, it might be time to look into buying a new mattress. Yes, a good mattress is expensive, but think about it like investing in your health.

Related: How to Help Post-Accident Soreness

Relieve Your Stress

Stress can mess up many of our bodily functions, including disturbing our sleep and causing us to wake up in pain. Yoga, exercise, massages, and meditation can change how your brain processes pain, reliving the intensity over time.

You can also incorporate natural supplements like CBD into your daily routine to help relieve your stress and wake up without those aches and pains.

CBD can relieve stress, reduce anxiety, and combat insomnia— all without serious side effects.