Why Do My Legs Ache At Night?

Have you ever experienced leg pain when lying down but not when standing?

Do you also get sore legs at night?

Maybe even experience some burning sensation in your legs when lying down?

This is actually not as uncommon as you may think. We get people asking us all the time where their legs ache at night, especially with population groups that have jobs where they are standing through the majority of the day. The last thing anyone wants to deal with after a long day of work is to get home, wind-down and be hit by a world of pain in their legs. It can leave you feeling unsettled and impact other facets of your life including your mood at home, your ability to relax and the capacity to fall asleep and stay sleeping.

Before we look into how to alleviate leg pain symptoms, lets first look at the different types of leg pain and how leg aches at night can translate for different people.

Types of Leg Pain

A leg ache can translate into different sensations of pain across different parts of the leg. The most common symptoms associated with leg pain at night that we see with our patients in the clinic are: 

• General pain in calves at night
• Painful thighs at night
• Burning sensation in legs when lying down
• Cramps in calves when sleeping 
• Leg pain when lying down but not standing 

These are the main symptoms you’d experience and don’t necessarily experience all the symptoms at once, but in some cases this may happen which can cause significant discomfort and seriously impact your sleep quality. 

The negative effects of sleep deprivation and the impacts on your health is a tale for another day but ultimately will reduce your capacity to operate at your best the next day and reduce your pain in the fastest time possible. 

We believe no one deserves to live in pain and so we wanted to write this to help you understand what are the main causes for your legs to ache at night, ways to manage the pain and the next steps to take to address this for good. 

Hence, if you’re experiencing sore legs at night and it’s waking you up multiple times, chances of you getting out of pain and feeling great the next day decline drastically. Fortunately enough, we have you covered here and make sure that you don’t need to keep putting up with the issues and limitations that the aches and pains bring to your life.

Causes of Leg Ache at Night

So what on earth causes your legs to ache at night? Here are the 5 main causes of leg pain:

1. Prolonged standing on hard surfaces
   
   If your job involves you standing in a static posture on surfaces like concrete all day- this in-turn reduces the cushioning effect that softer surfaces that are insulated well like modern floorboards provide or old-fashioned outdoor grass. Standing on harder surfaces for short periods has minimal impact on your body but over the course of several hours, it can lead to excessive strain on your lower body muscles, joints and feet causing pain in calves at night. 

2. Weaknesses in larger muscle groups (i.e. core/hips)
   

   General weakness in core or hip muscle groups may be one of the many causes of leg cramps at night. This can be attributed to several factors such as lack of regular exercise or a sedentary lifestyle which can ultimately lead to compensation down the chain to your calves and feet. If you’re lacking the sufficient stability in your mid-section and strength throughout your hip muscles, the forces of gravity will travel downwards and place additional stress on the muscles around your knees and ankles. In turn, this results in sore legs at night. 

3. Poor/inadequate footwear
   

   Having the right shoes/footwear for what you’re doing is essential for ensuring that your feet are protected and you’re not over stressing your joints during the day. What we commonly see though is people who work corporate jobs wearing high-heels or narrow suit shoes all-day that place excessive strain on their feet, hindering optimal foot function. This places additional stress on the lower body which generally results in leg aches when lying down due to the muscle being in a tight and short position for too long periods of time.
   
   Additionally, using non-supportive shoes like thongs, slippers or runners with no cushioning when going on long walks or runs place excessive stress over the lower body during the day and invariably leg aches at night. Generally your body will overcompensate with muscle tightness and spasms across the lower leg muscles in an attempt to protect the foot and ankle joints which results in cramps in calves while sleeping or painful thighs at night alongside other symptoms of discomfort.
   
   If you’re diabetic, its its all the more important for you to know how to choose running shoes to help prevent potential diabetic foot problems in the future. In this case, its recommended to consult a podiatrist for best footwear options based on your condition.

4. Load management with training
   

   Under-recovering or over-training your lower body is usually one of the main causes of leg pain. If you’ve either recently increased your training volume rapidly e.g. added a few extra training sessions a week instantly or conversely been sleeping extremely poorly and along with poor nutrition this can result in your lower body muscles failing to repair damaged tissue from sudden heavy training in a short amount of time.
   
   Muscles that end up in a chronically tight state due to being under stress they’re not conditioned for may lead to causes of leg cramps at night due to being in a constant over-stimulated state.
   
   If you’ve ever wondered “Should I work out with sore muscles?”  it is important to identify those factors that are contributing to the muscle soreness and seek training advice based on how your body recovers.
   
   Moreover, leg pain may also be due to excessive build-up of waste products within the muscle tissue that isn’t getting a sufficient amount of time to be cleared out to allow for the muscles and joints to recover at an optimal rate.
   
   So if you’ve ever experienced cramps in your calves while sleeping you’re not alone. We see this pattern quite frequently in runners who aren’t getting enough time away from their runs to allow for the calf muscle tissue to repair and heal fully. 

5. Magnesium deficiency
   

   A magnesium deficiency may also be one of the causes for legs ache at night. Magnesium is a mineral that is required by all the components of your body for various functions. Magnesium plays an important role in controlling the electrical currents that cause muscular contractions. It’s an essential component for neuromuscular transmission that connects your brain system to your muscular system. 
   Therefore, a lack of magnesium intake for a person can potentially lead to muscular cramps as it impedes on healthy muscle function, especially in the calf and thigh muscles.
   Eating magnesium rich foods are also shown to alleviate leg pain caused by arthritis. Learn more about some foods to avoid if you have arthritis.
   Magnesium can also calm your nervous system and act as a muscle relaxant which can help reduce sore legs. 

6. Pregnancy Factors
   

   Leg pain can also be caused due to several factors during pregnancy such as increased hormonal levels, changes in blood circulation, the added weight due to gestation and the pressure from the growing baby sometimes even translating to cramps or spasms. However, leg pain or leg cramps during pregnancy are a common complaint among expectant mothers and can be managed with the right lifestyle changes in most cases. 

Now this is by no means an exhaustive list of all the causes for leg pain at night. However, when patients complain of leg pain, we first assess their physical body, daily tasks, habits and environment across these 5 areas and recommend solutions to manage pain effectively. 

Ways To Manage Leg Pain At Night

 

• Consume adequate magnesium
  

  Ensure that you’re consuming enough magnesium from your diet. Eating foods that are rich in magnesium such as almonds, spinach, cashews and peanuts can help take care of magnesium deficiency that increases the chances of leg pain at night. If you’re considering taking any magnesium supplements, consult with your doctor to identify the right one for your symptoms.

• Drink enough water
  

  Dehydration or a lack of water intake in the day can also result in cramping of your muscles. Therefore, ensure that you’re consuming a minimum of 2-3 L of water throughout the day to allow for optimal and healthy muscle function.

• Give yourself a massage
  

  Using self massage techniques with foam rollers or trigger balls can help attack areas in your lower body muscles before going to bed to reduce the leg aches at night.

• Change your posture frequently
  

  Frequent change in your postures earlier during the day can help reduce load and stress to your leg muscles. Increasing your movement and reducing standing statically limits leg pain when lying down.

What To Do When You Experience Leg Ache At Night?

 

STRETCH

Stretching the calves or thigh muscles can settle down a strong muscle spasm, especially one at night or while you’re asleep. If you experience pain in calves at night, try this simple stretch to stop the ache/cramp:

• Straighten the knee
• Use your own hand or a towel around your foot to pull your toes towards you
• Hold the stretch for 30-60 seconds while trying to relax simultaneously
• Make sure to feel the stretch in the lower leg/back of the knee area

WALK

Take a few steps around your bedroom to get fresh blood flow to the affected muscles to bring nutrients to the area cramping up.

HYDRATE

Water intake when the sensations come in can provide quick relief especially at night as this is when muscles tend to heal and recover the most. 

Pro-Form Physiotherapy is a physiotherapy and allied health centre in Bella Vista and 4 other locations in Sydney with qualified team to help you resolve pain and life your best life. Our team at Pro-Form conduct detailed assessments of your injury or condition and help put together sustainable recovery programs to help you relive pain and move with ease. To find out more about why your legs ache at night and other causes of leg pain, book an appointment with one of our practitioners at a Pro-Form today!