I'm 44, and have been teaching myself guitar for 2 1/2 years. I've noticed that most mornings when I wake up, my left hand fretting fingers ache (sp?). My right hand is fine (I'm a fingerpicker.) I practice at least 2 and 1/2 hours a day (with breaks in between.) When I wake up and feel the "slight ache" in my fretting fingers, I bend my fingers a few times and the pain slowly goes away. I now try to do some simple finger exercises in the first 3 frets each time I practice (I don't play barre chords often.) To my knowledge, I don't have arthiritis (sp.) Any suggestions? Also, this problem started in the last 2 months.