Researcher Christian Kier Stahl Petersen, the leader of the study, explained that sleep is not merely a physical rest but plays a crucial role in regulating pain signals, surpassing previous expectations, according to ‘Medical Xpress’.
The study involved 59 healthy adults aged between 18 and 45 years, where researchers measured pain tolerance before and after repeatedly exposing participants over three nights, which included waking them three times each night to perform simple tasks.
The results showed that sleep disturbance raises and negatively affects physical and mental health. Petersen confirmed that this study is the first to experimentally prove the existence of gender differences in pain response during sleep disturbance, supporting previous observations from clinical research.
In the context of chronic pain treatment, experts pointed out that current options include exercise, which reduces pain by 20-25%, medications that achieve similar relief but with potential side effects, and surgery, which may succeed or worsen the pain in some cases.
These findings open new avenues for pain treatment as it is considered an essential part of therapeutic strategies, especially for women who show greater susceptibility to these disturbances.
