You spend about one-third of your life sleeping. Those hours can be a time to refresh and repair your body and mind or they can leave you feeling fatigued and aching all over. Your sleep position plays a big role in the quality of your sleep. See how your sleep position may be hurting you and learn how to make some positive changes.
Sleeping on your back is widely regarded as the ideal position. Your spine has three natural curves found at the lower and middle back and up near your neck. When you’re supine, nothing interferes with those curves. Even if you tend to breathe from your chest all day, when you’re on your back you naturally start breathing correctly from your diaphragm which helps you relax and circulates more oxygen to your brain and throughout your body. Lying on your back may even help you delay getting wrinkles because your face isn’t getting smashed into a pillow. Plus, if you’re a woman, your breasts are fully supported and less prone to premature sagging. You may want to use a small neck roll pillow to help keep your head and shoulders in place.
Sleeping on one side is actually the most common position, especially for women. If that’s what you prefer, you can still get some decent slumber. Use a pillow above your shoulder to keep your head and neck in a neutral position. Straighten out a little so your body isn’t in an extreme fetal curve that could interfere with your breathing. Put a small pillow between your knees to keep your hips aligned.
If you’re sleeping on your stomach, you may want to break that habit. All that strain on your joints and muscles can build up over the years and cause chronic back pain and headaches. If you’re unable to sleep any other way, putting a pillow under your pelvis may help take some of the strain off your back.
You can train yourself to sleep in a different position. If you want to get off your stomach and sleep on your side, try hugging a full-length body pillow. Some people wear a shirt with a pocket where they can stick a tennis ball to make it too uncomfortable to stay on their stomach in case they roll over in their sleep. To sleep on your back, try falling asleep that way and return to lying on your back if you catch yourself going back to your old habits. Changing your sleep position can improve your life.
This article is for informational purposes and is the opinion of the author which may not be the opinion of the site that this article links to. You should seek the advice of a doctor when it comes to your personal health.
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