Back pain and sleep are more closely linked than most people realise, and if you’re waking up sore night after night, you’re not imagining it. You finally get comfortable. Twenty minutes later you’re wide awake again, shifting position, trying to find the one spot where your lower back will just settle down. Sound familiar?
If you’re over 60 and dealing with ongoing low back pain, there’s a good chance it’s costing you more than just a comfortable day. It’s costing you sleep too, and that’s not you being soft about it. New research backs up what a lot of our patients have been telling us for years: chronic back pain and poor sleep tend to travel together, and each one seems to make the other worse.
The Pain-Sleep Cycle Nobody Warns You About
Here’s the frustrating part. It’s not just that a sore back makes it harder to sleep. Poor sleep can also make your pain feel worse the next day. You wake up tired and stiff, your pain feels more intense than usual, you have a rough day, and that makes it even harder to sleep the following night. Round and round it goes.
A systematic review published this year in the journal Chiropractic & Manual Therapies looked specifically at this pattern in older adults followed over time. People with more frequent or severe back pain were more likely to go on to develop sleep problems, and people whose pain intensity increased tended to see their sleep quality drop alongside it. It genuinely runs both ways.
If you’ve ever had a good night’s sleep and noticed your back felt more manageable the next day, or a terrible night and felt like your pain had a field day, you already know this instinctively. The research is just catching up to what your body’s been telling you.
Why This Hits Harder as We Get Older
Poor sleep isn’t just an annoyance when you’re in your 60s, 70s, or beyond. It’s connected to bigger things too, including heart health and how sharp your thinking stays. Nearly half of older Australians report their sleep quality isn’t great, and if chronic back pain is part of what’s driving that, it’s worth taking seriously rather than just putting up with it.
This is exactly why we ask about sleep as part of a proper back pain assessment. It’s not a throwaway question. If your pain is disturbing your sleep, or your sleep is making your pain worse, that’s a cycle worth breaking, not something to quietly live with because you assume “that’s just what happens” as you get older.
So What Can You Actually Do About It?
The honest answer is that improving your sleep alone probably won’t fix chronic back pain, and treating your back pain isn’t a guaranteed fix for sleep either. But they’re clearly connected, so addressing your back pain properly gives you a real shot at breaking the cycle, rather than managing two separate problems that keep feeding each other.
A few things that genuinely help in the meantime:
- Finding a sleeping position that keeps your spine reasonably neutral, rather than twisted or flexed for hours
- A mattress that actually supports you, not one that’s sagged in the middle for the last decade
- Keeping a consistent sleep routine, since your body responds well to predictability
- Not ignoring back pain that’s been hanging around for weeks, hoping it’ll sort itself out
That last one is the big one. If you’re losing sleep over pain that’s been there a while, it’s usually a sign the pain itself needs proper attention, not just a better pillow.
Ready to Break the Cycle?
If back pain has been quietly wrecking your sleep for longer than you’d like to admit, we’d encourage you to get it properly looked at rather than adapting your whole life around it. Health First Chiropractic is located at 8 Deborah Grove, Modbury North, and we see plenty of people across Adelaide’s north-eastern suburbs dealing with exactly this.
We offer a free “Clarity Call”, a free 10-minute phone conversation with our chiropractor to talk through what’s going on and whether we can help.
Contact Us
(08) 8396 2929
info@healthfirstchiropractic.com.au
Practice Location: 8 Deborah Grove, Modbury North, SA, 5092
Source
- Rahbar P, Wong JJ, DeSouza A, Papaconstantinou E, Wang D, Hogg-Johnson S, Côté P. The association between low back pain and sleep quality in adults 60 years and older: a systematic review. Chiropractic & Manual Therapies 2026. doi: 10.1186/s12998-026-00656-w
Frequently Asked Questions
It can certainly disrupt sleep, whether that’s trouble falling asleep, waking through the night, or not getting deep, restful sleep even when you are asleep. Research following older adults over time has found that back pain often precedes the development of sleep problems, so if your sleep has gone downhill around the same time your back pain has, the two are very likely connected.
This is a real, documented pattern, not something in your head. Poor sleep and worsening pain tend to move together, and evidence suggests the relationship runs in both directions: pain disrupts sleep, and poor sleep can make pain feel more intense. Breaking the cycle usually means addressing the pain itself rather than only chasing better sleep.
It’s common, but that doesn’t mean it should be left unaddressed. Nearly half of older adults report fair or poor sleep quality, and chronic low back pain becomes more common with age too. When the two show up together, which happens often, it’s worth having your back pain properly assessed rather than assuming poor sleep is just an unavoidable part of getting older.
Not necessarily on its own, and we wouldn’t want to promise that. What the evidence does show is a consistent connection between the two, so getting your back pain properly assessed and managed gives you a genuine chance at improving both, rather than treating them as two unrelated issues.
Start by having your back pain properly assessed rather than working around it indefinitely. A supportive mattress, a spine-neutral sleeping position, and a consistent routine can help in the meantime, but if pain has been disturbing your sleep for weeks or longer, that’s a sign the pain itself needs attention. If sleep problems are significant or ongoing, it’s also worth raising with your GP.