Eli5 why do adults get back/body pain when they sleep wrong but not children?
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Children bend and heal much better than fully matured humans will, basically. When you’re younger, some activities you won’t even get hurt because you’re ‘elastic enough’ to handle the movement – or you don’t notice it because the damage is minor and a young body heals so much more quickly on average. Children bounce back much more efficiently than adults do with injuries.
You weigh a lot more as an adult. That’s more pressure and leverage on every joint and muscle pressing deeper into the mattress and making things more uncomfortable.
Especially as you don’t spend your life laying down, so those muscles etc. are lying in ways they’re not accustomed to for the rest of the day. It’s like “hanging upside down” for the night, and wondering why it feels different to when you walk upright all day.
Also, so many people have terrible posture – and by that I mean they don’t lay or sit or even stand naturally, they try to force their back into a right-angle all day and over time their body builds muscle and regrows ligaments to compensate so when you do lie “naturally”, it feels wrong and hurts. Most adults I know have seriously strained their back at least once by doing something stupid. I’ve never done that.
I’m 43. I’ve never had anything more than a quick “Ooh, quick stretch to awaken that muscle” kind of “pain” (not even that really, more like just opening the muscle back up from a small cramp) in my back or body when asleep or rising from sleep.
I’ve slept on some awful mattresses, for years in some cases. I’ve camped out for months at a time. My body gets uncomfortable, I listen to it and move. So many people learn to ignore their body or fight it… you know why “sitting up straight” hurts? Yeah, it’s because you’re not supposed to do it. You know why “lifting heavy things badly hurts”? Because you’re not supposed to do it. If you stop BEFORE it ever hurts, rather than “powering through” because “it’s just one more bag” or “there’s only 20 minutes left of the movie” or whatever, that’s when you’re going to breed problems for yourself.
Children don’t have that because of their scale, so the leverage on the same joints is very much lessoned, because they are more flexible and pliable (their cartilage and even bones don’t start to harden for many years, it’s much more fluid and stretchy) but also because they haven’t damaged themselves trying to do stupid things. Have you SEEN how much a toddler whines when their foot is hurting? There’s a reason for that. Their body is telling them not to do whatever is hurting, no matter what mum and dad think.
You know when you lay awkwardly and can’t get comfortable and it’s stopping you sleeping but you fight it to go to sleep because you have to get up the next day? Congratulations, you used mind over matter to hurt yourself deliberately. Your body sent you warning signals and you trained yourself to ignore them, overrule them, and continue sleeping in that painful position over the course of years.
Our nervous system is protective of our spine, because it’s highly susceptible to catastrophic injury. This is true for children, but it becomes more significant as we get older, our nervous systems more fully develop, and we develop the strength to hurt ourselves. This is what results in the common back aches of adults — we sleep in a funny position, lift something heavy with bad form, etc., which irritates the nerve/muscle and causes the nervous system to react to shut us down.
Also, as we develop and get stronger, we trade strength for flexibility. On top of that adults have had decades sitting in chairs and otherwise taking positions that throw off our posture, range of motion, etc. and various types of accumulated damage to our spine and muscles.
Inflammation. Adults eat a lot more foods that cause inflammation, and inflammatory molecules in those foods can accumulate in your tissues.
Inflammation causes pain, swelling and stiffness.
If you ever try an elimination diet you might find a lot of your body aches and morning stiffness disappear.
It might be less common for children to get pain from sleeping in awkward positions, but it does happen. It’s less frequent because children are much more flexible than adults.
I did get back pain from my bed as a kid. It was a platform bed but had too few slats that slid around.
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