Why your back is stiffer in the morning than in the evening

What happens in your back at night, why a new mattress often doesn’t solve it, and how ANDUFIT, a massage module under your mattress, loosens your back before you even get up.

In collaboration with Dr. Roland Stutz Sports scientist and chair of the scientific advisory board of Andullation®
A man sitting relaxed in bed holding the ANDUFIT remote, programme P08 on the display
Waking up and loosening your back with the ANDUFIT massage module first, before you even get up.

The first fifteen minutes of the day

The alarm goes off. You turn over, and there it is again. Your back feels like a plank. You carefully put your feet on the floor, push yourself up with your hands, and your first steps to the bathroom are smaller than you’d like.

By midday it’s usually gone. During the day you hardly think about it. Until the next morning, when it all starts again.

Many people put it down to their age, their mattress or the way they sleep. That can play a part. But there’s something underneath that almost nobody knows, and it explains why most solutions only half work.

You’re certainly not the only one

619 million

people worldwide had low back pain in 2020. It becomes more common as we get older. Global Burden of Disease study, The Lancet Rheumatology, 2023

Low back problems are the leading cause of limitations in daily life worldwide. For many people, they start at the same moment every day: when getting up. Morning stiffness is such a recognisable sign that researchers measured it separately in the Dutch BACE study of older adults with back complaints.

What happens in your back at night

A stiff back in the morning doesn’t start in the morning. It builds up during the night, through three things that happen at the same time.

You lie almost still for hours. During the day, every movement keeps blood flowing to your muscles. At night, that largely stops. Muscles that were already tense get little reason to let go.

Your spine lengthens slightly at night. During the day, your body weight compresses your spine a tiny bit. As soon as you lie down, that pressure disappears and it lengthens again. That’s why you’re a little taller in the morning than in the evening. Research has shown that this makes your lower back noticeably less supple in the morning than in the evening.

The tension of the day comes to bed with you. If you lie down tense, you start the night at a disadvantage.

A night in your back

What happens between going to sleep and getting up

Switch between an ordinary night and a night with the ANDUFIT massage module.

  1. You lie down The tension of a long day is still in your back and shoulders.
  2. Lying still Your muscles hardly move. Blood flow in your back muscles slows down.
  3. Your spine lengthens Without the weight of the day, your spine lengthens slightly again.
  4. You wake up stiff Your spine is tighter, your muscles have been still all night and the tension of the day never let go.

So the moment to act isn’t when you get up, but before.

How is your back doing?

Back check · 1 minute Question 1 of 6

How does your back feel when you get up?

What most people have already tried

If you wake up stiff every morning, you’ve probably tried a few things already. None of them are wrong. They just work at the wrong moment, or not for long enough.

Stretching and a hot shower helps for a while

Loosening up after getting out of bed works, but you only start once the stiffness is already there. The next morning you’re back where you started.

A new mattress expensive and uncertain

Worth it if your old mattress is truly worn out. But even on a perfect mattress you lie still for eight hours, and your spine still lengthens at night.

Painkillers dulls the feeling

They make the morning more bearable, but do nothing about the tension you take to bed.

Massage or physiotherapy not every day

It works, and research confirms it. But you can’t go every evening and every morning, and that’s exactly where the problem lies.

Massage helps. The problem is how often.

A large Cochrane review brought together 25 controlled studies with more than 3,000 participants in total. The conclusion: massage eases back complaints, but the effect shows mainly in the short term.

In other words: massage works, as long as you keep doing it. Based on Furlan et al., Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2015

And that’s the catch. A massage or a physio session has to be booked, travelled to and paid for every time. Once a week is already a lot. Meanwhile, your back stiffens up every night.

What you really need is relaxation at the two moments that matter: just before you go to sleep and just before you get up. Every day. No appointment needed.

The solution

Massage in your own bed, every evening and every morning

ANDUFIT is a massage module with 20 programmes that slides under your mattress or topper. For a stiff back there’s programme 8, “Back”: in the evening it relaxes your back muscles after a long day, in the morning it loosens your back before you even get up. You simply keep your own bed.

A box spring bed with the mattress lifted, showing two ANDUFIT modules with glowing massage zones underneath Fits under mattress or topper Only 7 cm high

How it works

Gentle, low-frequency Andullation® vibrations travel through the mattress via seven motors to five body zones, from your shoulders to your calves. They help your muscles relax and support blood flow. The same technology is also used in physiotherapy.

Fits any bed Works through any mattress or topper up to 45 cm thick, on a box spring, slatted base or solid base.
Installed in 10 minutes Slide the module under your mattress, plug in the remote and you’re done. No tools needed.
20 programmes Choose the programme that suits you, from back relaxation to falling asleep more easily or recovery after exercise. In 7 intensities, from gentle to firm.
Simply enjoy A session lasts 15 minutes. You lie back, ANDUFIT does the rest.

Andullation® technology, backed by science

Andullation® was developed in Germany together with universities and is also used in physiotherapy. The technology has also been independently studied.

A peer-reviewed study, published on PubMed, followed 50 people who received five half-hour andullation massages. The researchers measured before and after how participants experienced pain, how they felt and how much pressure their lower back could tolerate.

Peer-reviewed · PubMed

What changed after five sessions

Parras-Moltó A, Ribas-Serna J. Dose-Response, 2019;17(2). PMID 31105478.

50 people Participants
5 × 30 min Massages
5 to 40 Hz Vibration frequency
2 to 8 mm Vibration depth
-52.3% pain perception
+45.1% well-being
+34.5% lower back pain threshold

Study of 50 people without a control group, published on PubMed. The pain threshold was measured with a pressure gauge: more pressure was needed before it hurt. ANDUFIT is not a medical device and does not promise any cure. If complaints persist, consult your doctor.

Together in bed, each with your own massage

Share your bed? Then each of you has your own module, each with 20 programmes. You choose the Back programme, your partner something completely different.

Two modules side by side, each with 20 programmes.

Evening

A 15-minute programme while you lie in bed. You go to sleep without the tension of the day.

Morning

The 15-minute Back programme when you wake up, before you even get up. Your back loosens up while you’re still lying down.

Curious what ANDUFIT can do for you? Try it for 14 nights in your own bed

You don’t have to take our word for it. Put ANDUFIT under your own mattress and use it for two weeks the way you would every day afterwards: in the evening before sleep and in the morning before you get up. Pay particular attention to how those first steps out of bed feel.

  1. Night 1 You choose the Back programme and the intensity that feels right.
  2. Week 1 Evening and morning become a fixed moment for your back.
  3. Night 14 You decide. If you don’t notice a difference, send it back free of charge and get a full refund.
  • Free delivery and free returns
  • Pay in instalments
View pricing

Sources

  1. GBD 2021 Low Back Pain Collaborators. Global, regional, and national burden of low back pain, 1990-2020, its attributable risk factors, and projections to 2050. The Lancet Rheumatology, 2023;5(6):e316-e329. Source for “619 million”.
  2. Feller D et al. Spinal morning stiffness, lumbar disc degeneration and C-reactive protein: the BACE study. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage Open, 2024. PMID 39554477. Source for morning stiffness as a separately measured sign.
  3. Zander T et al. Diurnal variations in intervertebral disc height affect spine flexibility. Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, 2010. Source for the less supple back in the morning.
  4. Furlan AD et al. Massage for low-back pain. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2015. Source for the short-term effect of massage.
  5. Parras-Moltó A, Ribas-Serna J. Dose-Response, 2019;17(2). PMID 31105478. Source for the Andullation® results.

This article is an advertorial by ANDUFIT. ANDUFIT is not a medical device and does not replace medical advice. Results vary from person to person.