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Insufficient sleep increases pain sensitivity in healthy individuals. Additionally, extending sleep (eg, increasing nocturnal sleep time or adding a mid-day nap) has been shown to restore pain sensitivity to baseline levels in sleep deprived/restricted individuals. Whether sleep extension can reduce pain sensitivity beyond baseline levels in non-sleep restricted/deprived individuals remains unknown.

In a sample of 27 healthy, pain-free, normally-sleeping individuals (17 males, mean age ∼24 yrs), we examined the impact of five nights of sleep extension on pain sensitivity. Pain threshold (elapsed time until the participant reported pain) and pain tolerance (total time the participant kept the hand submerged in the cold water) were measured using the Cold Pressor Task. Furthermore, we assessed the extent to which self-reported sleep amount in relation to the minimal subjective sleep requirement for …