Science Reveals Why You Feel Stiff in the Morning

It's no accident that chronic inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis tend to be worse during the daytime, research has found.

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Karla Bowsher • August 12, 2016

Researchers have discovered why we often feel stiff during morning hours.

The effects of a protein called cryptochrome wear off during the morning hours, causing stiffness, according to a study published this month in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) Journal.

Cryptochrome is created by the body’s circadian rhythm, aka its “biological clock.” It has significant anti-inflammatory effects, according to the study.

Cryptochrome actively suppresses inflammation, specifically during the night, the researchers found. According to a report in The Telegraph:

Researchers revealed the reason our limbs can feel rigid and achy when we rise is because the body’s biological clock suppresses anti-inflammatory proteins during sleep.

When we start moving around each morning our body is playing catch up as the effects of the proteins wear off.

This finding helps explain why the symptoms of chronic inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis tend to be worse during the daytime.

While this discovery may not yield an immediate solution to help people who struggle with inflammation, it does have the potential to help researchers develop more effective treatments for inflammatory diseases like arthritis.

Co-author Julie Gibbs, who studies arthritis at the Institute of Human Development at the University of Manchester in the U.K., explains in a news release from FASEB:

“By understanding how the biological clock regulates inflammation, we can begin to develop new treatments, which might exploit this knowledge. Furthermore, by adapting the time of day at which current drug therapies are administered, we may be able to make them more effective.”