Rheumatoid Arthritis Morning Stiffness: Steps for Relief
Rheumatoid ArthritisFinding Strength: Life With RA

10 Ways to Ease Rheumatoid Arthritis Morning Stiffness

Adjusting your morning routine can help loosen up stiff, swollen joints.
10 Ways to Ease Rheumatoid Arthritis Morning Stiffness
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Updated on October 9, 2025
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The morning stiffness of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is pervasive. People who have RA tend to experience morning stiffness that can last more than an hour — and often lasts several.

 Prolonged morning stiffness is actually a hallmark of RA, one that often points doctors toward a diagnosis of RA as opposed to other forms of arthritis.

“At the heart of the problem is prolonged joint inactivity, something that’s unavoidable while you’re asleep,” says John M. Davis III, MD, a rheumatologist and a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Your body’s natural circadian rhythms, which can cause a nighttime surge of inflammatory cells that can trigger early-morning joint inflammation, may also be to blame.

According to Dr. Davis, some people who have RA describe morning stiffness as a feeling of being trapped in a 90-year-old body or a freezing or locking up of their joints. “Stiffness makes performing the simplest of morning tasks more difficult and often dictates the morning routine,” he says.

If you’re troubled by morning stiffness from RA, there are steps you can take — some before you even get out of bed — to wake up your joints and face the day.

Finding ways to ease morning stiffness can benefit you all day long. Use these tips to create your own personalized routine for managing the morning stiffness of RA:

1. Get a Good Night’s Sleep

While morning stiffness can occur after a solid night of sleep, getting quality sleep is important in order to break the cycle in which poor sleep worsens your RA symptoms and your RA symptoms make it difficult to get the rest you need. Research has found that in people with RA, those with sleep problems experience higher pain sensitivity than those without sleep troubles — suggesting that a lack of sleep may interfere with the way the central nervous system processes pain. Pain sensitivity and markers of inflammation increase when sleep is disrupted.

2. Set an Early Alarm

Jessica Gottlieb, a mom with RA who has struggled with morning stiffness, sets her thermostat to kick up the heat about 30 minutes before she needs to get going in the morning; she sets her alarm for that time too. That half hour allows time for her joints to warm up before she has to get moving.

3. Take Your Medication Right After You Wake Up

If you take medication to manage RA symptoms, take the morning dose as soon as possible after waking up, advises Davis. Keep your medication and some water on your nightstand so you don’t even have to get out of bed first.

4. Warm Up Your Joints

Heating pads or an electric blanket can help provide a soothing start to your morning and ease stiffness, according to the Arthritis Foundation.

Taking a hot shower or a warm bath for 15 to 20 minutes, if you have the time, can also help.

 Even running your hands under warm water may ease stiffness.

Moist heat penetrates more deeply than dry heat, Harvard Health Publishing notes. To make a warm compress, try heating a damp folded towel for 20 to 60 seconds in the microwave; to avoid burns, test the heated towel on the inside of your arm before applying it to a joint.

Gottlieb keeps her medication and other essentials within arm’s reach on her nightstand: a heating pad, warm socks, mittens, and a book to read while she’s loosening up her joints in bed. Before getting up to take her morning shower, she uses the heating pad and puts on the mittens and socks to warm up. “My feet feel like my bones are made of glass in the morning,” she says, “but if they’re warm, I’m better off.”

5. Incorporate Gentle Movements

Start your morning by performing some gentle range-of-motion exercises to stretch and loosen your hands, wrists, feet, and any joints especially bothered by morning stiffness.

6. Prep for Morning the Night Before

Gottlieb suggests using evenings to prepare for the next day to ease some of the morning rush-hour strain. She makes lunches, loads school bags, and places her own essentials right by the door.

You can also experiment with prepping breakfast ingredients the night before or try no-cook overnight oats.

7. Experiment With Adaptive Devices

To ease the strain on painful hands, try using adaptive devices like wide-gripped utensils to help you prepare and eat breakfast.

Consider consulting an occupational therapist, who can help you make adjustments to your home and habits and offer suggestions to make things easier when you have morning stiffness.

8. Get Help With Morning Tasks

Gottlieb found that getting herself and her kids up and ready in the morning was tough, so she enlisted help. “I set up a carpool with a neighbor,” she says. “She drove the kids to school in the morning and I did afternoon pickups. This way, when I got out of bed, all I had to do was supervise breakfast and get the kids out the door.”

9. Ease Into the Day

Don’t push yourself at the start of your day. “Pacing activities or breaking up tasks in the morning can help with getting things done in a more tolerable way,” Davis says. Gottlieb takes steps to conserve energy whenever possible. “If I don’t need to go anywhere in the morning, I don’t get dressed with the kids,” she says. “If I have somewhere to be, I try to be showered and dressed before I wake them up.”

10. Work With Your Doctor

Working with your doctor is the most important component — he or she can help you find the appropriate medications to get RA under control and can advise you on dietary modifications and tips to get enough sleep — all of which can help ease morning stiffness.

The Takeaway

  • Adjusting your morning routine can help ease the stiffness caused by rheumatoid arthritis, making daily tasks more manageable.
  • Taking your RA medication promptly after waking up and employing strategies like warm compresses can help improve your mobility in the mornings.
  • Consider gentle movements and adaptive devices to reduce strain on joints, which could provide significant relief from morning stiffness.
  • If morning stiffness is persistent, check in with your doctor to potentially adjust your treatments or further explore the underlying causes.

Additional reporting by Erica Patino.

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Beth Biggee, MD

Medical Reviewer
Member of American College of Lifestyle Medicine, Castle Connolly Top Doctor

Beth Biggee, MD, is medical director and an integrative rheumatologist at Rheumission, a virtual integrative rheumatology practice for people residing in California and Pennsylvania. This first-of-its-kind company offers whole person autoimmune care by a team of integrative rheumatologists, lifestyle medicine practitioners, autoimmune dietitians, psychologists, and care coordinators.

Dr. Biggee also works as a healthcare wellness consultant for Synergy Wellness Center in Hudson, Massachusetts. Teamed with Synergy, she provides in-person lifestyle medicine and holistic consults, and contributes to employee workplace wellness programs. She has over 20 years of experience in rheumatology and holds board certifications in rheumatology and integrative and lifestyle medicine. Dr. Biggee brings a human-centered approach to wellness rather than focusing solely on diseases.

Dr. Biggee graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree from Canisius College, and graduated magna cum laude and as valedictorian from SUNY Health Science Center at Syracuse Medical School. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital, completed her fellowship in rheumatology at Tufts–New England Medical Center, and completed training in integrative rheumatology at the University of Arizona Andrew Weil Center for Integrative Medicine. Following her training, she attained board certification in rheumatology and internal medicine through the American Board of Internal Medicine, attained board certification in integrative medicine through the American Board of Physician Specialties, and attained accreditation as a certified lifestyle medicine physician through the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. She is certified in Helms auricular acupuncture and is currently completing coursework for the Aloha Ayurveda integrative medicine course for physicians.

In prior roles, Dr. Biggee taught as an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital (an affiliate of Columbia University). She was also clinical associate of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and instructed "introduction to clinical medicine" for medical students at Tufts. She was preceptor for the Lawrence General Hospital Family Medicine Residency.

Dr. Biggee has published in Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, Arthritis in Rheumatism, Current Opinions in Rheumatology, Journal for Musculoskeletal Medicine, Medicine and Health Rhode Island, and Field Guide to Internal Medicine.

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Diana Rodriguez

Diana Rodriguez

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Diana Rodriguez is a full-time freelance writer with experience writing health-related news and feature stories. She is skilled in taking confusing doctor-speak and complex medical topics and crafting language that's easy for readers to understand. She is a managing editor at the Mayo Clinic and has written extensively for HealthDay. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky and holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and French from Miami University.

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