It’s National Pain Awareness Week from November 3rd to November 9th, 2024.

This week, take some time to learn more about pain, listen to the experiences of people living with pain, or get involved in pain research.
Consider participating in the CircaPain study to help us understand the link between chronic pain and circadian rhythms:
Learn more about pain and get involved in pain research: Join CircaPain

 

Discover all the activities that Power Over Pain has put together:

National Pain Awareness Week – Power Over Pain Portal 

Semaine nationale de sensibilisation à la douleur – Portail Surmonter sa douleur 

 

Why do you need sleep?

Everyone has experienced the drag of a sleepless night at least once in their life. You wake up feeling unrested, unfocused, and unmotivated to start your day. Sleep is a basic biological need of the human body, similar to our need for food and water. While you are asleep, your body and brain remain active, using that time to restore, repair, and recalibrate for the next day (Ramar et al., 2021). Sleep is essential for cognitive functions like learning and memory consolidation, as well as for mood stability, immune system health, and physical recovery. Without enough sleep, you may experience increased stress, reduced cognitive performance, and weakened immune function (Ramar et al., 2021). For people experiencing chronic pain, the importance of sleep is even greater.

 

How poor sleep can exacerbate chronic pain

A lack of sleep can actually lead to an increased sensitivity to pain; in other words, insufficient sleep can lower your pain threshold (Haack et al., 2020). This means that sensations that used to feel manageable or tolerable are now becoming painful, increasing discomfort. As the pain worsens, it can interfere with your ability to carry out normal daily activities, making it harder to stay active and engage in routines.

Additionally, prolonged sleep deprivation can increase inflammation, a key response from the body’s immune system to release inflammatory cells, which can contribute to pain. Disturbed sleep has been associated with an increased activation of markers – or signals – of inflammation, leading to increased inflammation, and consequently more pain (Haack et al., 2020).

 

Chronic pain makes it harder to sleep – breaking the cycle

People experiencing chronic pain often find it difficult to fall or stay asleep. This creates a complex cycle as the pain disrupts sleep, and a lack of sleep exacerbates the pain. There are many strategies to help improve the sleep-pain cycle, and they can benefit anyone who is struggling with sleep difficulties. Here are five tips to help you improve your sleep!

  1. Create a consistent sleep routine. Go to bed and wake up around the same time every day – even on weekends – to help regulate your internal clock (Markwald et al., 2018).
  2. Optimize your sleep environment. Keep your bedroom dark, quiet, and cool, with a comfortable mattress and pillow (Suni & Rosen, 2024).
  3. Limit stimulants and screens before bed. Stimulants like caffeine and nicotine can make it harder to fall asleep if consumed too close to bedtime (Markwald et al., 2018). Blue light exposure from screens interferes with melatonin production, a hormone essential for sleep (Markwald et al., 2018).
  4. Exercise. Engaging in consistent exercise can help reduce pain and improve sleep; these activities lead to the release of endorphins, feel-good chemicals, that can improve mood and reduce discomfort (Markwald et al., 2018). If you can’t be consistent with your exercise routine, even a walk can make a difference!
  5. Use mindfulness meditation techniques. Using relaxation techniques like deep breathing or guided meditation can help calm the body and quiet the mind, making it easier to fall asleep. Power Over Pain has a list of available resources for mediation and mindfulness practices and approaches to pain management.

Circadian rhythms (what we study at CircaPain) are not the same as sleep, but we know that both are important for how we experience pain. Check out our other blog posts explaining circadian rhythmicity or get involved in our study today to help us learn more about how all of these factors are interconnected!

Written by Avery T.

References

Haack, M., Simpson, N., Sethna, N., Kaur, S., & Mullington, J. (2020). Sleep deficiency and chronic pain: Potential underlying mechanisms and clinical implications. Neuropsychopharmacology: Official Publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 45(1), 205–216. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-019-0439-z

Markwald, R. R., Iftikhar, I., & Youngstedt, S. D. (2018). Behavioral Strategies, Including Exercise, For Addressing Insomnia. ACSM’S Health & Fitness Journal, 22(2), 23–29. https://doi.org/10.1249/FIT.0000000000000375

Ramar, K., Malhotra, R. K., Carden, K. A., Martin, J. L., Abbasi-Feinberg, F., Aurora, R. N., Kapur, V. K., Olson, E. J., Rosen, C. L., Rowley, J. A., Shelgikar, A. V., & Trotti, L. M. (2021). Sleep is essential to health: An American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 17(10), 2115–2119. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.9476

Rusch, H. L., Rosario, M., Levison, L. M., Olivera, A., Livingston, W. S., Wu, T., & Gill, J. M. (2019). The effect of mindfulness meditation on sleep quality: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1445(1), 5–16. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13996

Suni, E., & Rosen, D. (2024). Mastering Sleep Hygiene: Your Path to Quality Sleep. https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene

 

Chronic pain has a profound and far-reaching impact on the lives of many Canadians. With over 20% of our population living with some form of chronic pain, it’s vital to take the time to better understand the chronic pain experience; for a lot of people, part of this experience involves the concept of disability. Watch the third installment in our Summer 2023 video series about chronic pain as a disability to learn more.

Special thanks go out to one of the amazing PWLE on the CircaPain team, Lesley, who came up with the idea for this video, and to Emily, our summer public health practicum student, who is the creator of this video series.

 

Video produced by Emily S.

 

The dawn of the 21st century brought along with it the popularization of ‘personalized medicine’; the tailoring of someone’s medical care and treatment to suit their individual needs and genetic predispositions. As a team of people researching circadian rhythms, we are very interested in using personalized medicine to target our circadian system; a strategy called ‘chronotherapy’.

Never heard of chronotherapy before? Well that’s okay because we have created an introductory video about it as the second installment in our Summer 2023 video series.

 

Video produced by Eileen D. and Emily S.

In our new video series, we’ll be discussing a bit of the key concepts that drive our research. Naturally, we had to start with chronic pain as it is so central to our study and its goals. Watch the video above to learn a bit more about chronic pain.

The CircaPain study is open to all eligible participants – get involved today by clicking on the “Participate” tab!

 

Video produced by Eileen D. and Emily S.

 

Want to learn more about CircaPain but don’t know where to start? Check out this short video where we take you through the basics of our study and why it’s so important. If you still have questions, check out our FAQs or email us at mydailypain@ghasemloulab.ca. You can find the survey itself by clicking here.

 

Written by Hailey G.

 

What is Multiple Sclerosis?

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease that affects the central nervous system. MS targets myelin, which is the insulating layer of the nerves that allows electric signals to transmit more efficiently. While symptoms differ from person to person, multiple sclerosis usually manifests as weakness in the limbs, vision problems, slurred speech, fatigue, and dizziness. Here in Canada, where Circa Pain is based, we have one of the highest reported rates of MS worldwide. One estimate reveals that 1 in every 400 Canadians is living with the disease (Statistics Canada, 2018). No definite cause of MS has been determined to date. However, some risk factors that increase MS incidence have been found, such as genetics, smoking, and sex.

Multiple Sclerosis Incidence and Latitude

Newer research suggests that latitude might be another risk factor that correlates with MS incidence. One study conducted at the University of Tasmania, Australia found a notable association between MS severity and latitude (Tao et al, 2021). The researchers used age of disease onset as a marker for MS severity (with earlier onset being more severe) and found that the onset of symptoms was on average two years earlier for those living at higher latitudes. This finding echoes an older Australian study conducted in Queensland that also found a significant relationship between latitude and MS prevalence (Hammond et al, 1987).

However, a study within Asia found that geographical latitude was not a factor affecting the prevalence of MS (Zhang et al, 2020). The researchers conducted a meta-analysis of epidemiological data of MS from China, Japan, and neighbouring countries. They found that there was no correlation between geographical latitude and MS prevalence in those populations. As such, more studies need to be conducted to determine whether latitude or another underlying factor, such as exposure to sunlight, is behind the observed correlation in the Australian studies.

How the Latitude-MS Correlation Relates to Our Work

People living with multiple sclerosis experience different levels and types of pain, such as tingling, sudden pain spasms, or chronic muscle/joint pain. We are particularly interested in the work done in the aforementioned studies since the latitude at which you live determines how many daylight hours you are exposed to. This, in turn, can disrupt the body’s natural circadian rhythm, which is a term that describes the collection of biological functions that follow the 24-hour cycle (read more about circadian rhythms here). This is where our lab group comes in. In our work, we are looking to determine if circadian disruption plays a role in the experience of pain. To learn more, read about our research here.

 

Written by Tima Al-Shammaa

References:

1. Hammond, S. R., et al. (1987). The epidemiology of multiple sclerosis in Queensland, Australia. Journal of the neurological sciences, 80(2-3), 185–204. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-510x(87)90154-7
2. Multiple sclerosis: Prevalence and impact. (2018, January 17). Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/82-003-x/2018001/article/54902-eng.htm
3. Tao C, et al. Higher latitude is significantly associated with an earlier age of disease onset in multiple sclerosis, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 2016; 87:1343-1349.
4. Zhang, et al. (2020). Incidence and prevalence of multiple sclerosis in China and other Asian countries (Barcelona, Spain), S0213-4853(20)30269-3. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nrl.2020.07.022

Illustration created with BioRender.com

We’re almost two months in since the launch of CircaPain. Gaining new participants every day, we are looking forward to what the next few months will bring. This week, the principal investigator of CircaPain, Dr. Nader Ghasemlou, sat down with Alan Neal of CBC Radio One’s All in a Day to talk about the origins of our study and its ongoing recruitment.

CircaPain evolved from previous work done by the Pain Chronobiology & Neuroimmunology Lab at Queen’s University, investigating pain fluctuation in people living with chronic low back pain. We found that some participants had constant pain, whereas others had pain that was reliably lower in the mornings and more intense at night (“circadian pain”). With CircaPain, we want to find out if these patterns are experienced by people living with different types of chronic pain and why they might occur. Since everyone’s experience with chronic pain is different, it’s crucial that we have as many people as possible participate in CircaPain to further our understanding of this complex topic.

To learn more about the study, check out our FAQs. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at mydailypain@ghasemloulab.ca.

Listen to the full interview here: All in a Day with Alan Neal

 

Written by Hailey G.

CircaPain was developed by a team of scientists, clinicians, and people with lived experience from across Canada. Part of our team works at Queen’s University and was able to chat with the folks at Global News Kingston about our exciting new project. Click here to read their article.

Still have a few questions about CircaPain? Check out our FAQs or email us at mydailypain@ghasemloulab.ca – we are more than happy to help you!

 

Written by Hailey G.

 

Curious about the people working on CircaPain? Sit down and listen to our fantastic patient partners (Mary B., Jennifer DC., and Lesley NS.) talk about the study and how it came to be.

The CircaPain study is now open to all eligible participants – get involved today by clicking on the “Participate” tab!

 

Written by Hailey G.