‧ It is proven that a good night’s sleep has numerous health benefits. Poor quality of sleep has been linked to inattentiveness, errors at work, injuries, weight gain, heart attack and stroke. Finding the proper sleep position can be an important start to getting a good night’s rest.
‧ The best position to sleep in is on your back. Back-sleeping prevents neck and back pain, reduces acid reflux and minimizes wrinkles. Sleeping on your back makes it easy for your head, neck and spine to maintain a neutral position.
However, people with severe snoring or sleep apnea should avoid sleeping on their back. This position is recommended for people with neck pain along with a cervical roll or pillow.
‧ The next best position is the side position. This position is great for your overall health. It prevents neck and back pain, reduces acid reflux and reduces snoring. This position is ideal for women who are pregnant. Women in late pregnancy should sleep on their left side to increase blood flow to the baby. Side sleeping keeps your spine elongated preventing back soreness.
Side-sleeping, however, tends to constrict the shoulder and neck muscles due to the weight of the head on the arm all night. Side-sleepers should do a shoulder stretch to stretch the back of the shoulders and prevent soreness.
Side-sleeping also might worsen facial wrinkles and increase breast sagging over time. This sleep position is recommended for people with back pain with a pillow under your knees to relieve strain on the lumbar spine.
‧ The worst position to sleep in is on your stomach. The stomach position eases snoring but is bad for your neck and back. Stomach-sleeping makes it difficult to maintain a neutral position with your spine. It puts pressure on joints and muscles, which can irritate nerves and lead to pain, numbness and tingling.
Sleeping on your stomach flattens the natural curve in the lower back and keeps your head turned to one side all night distorting the alignment of the neck and spine. Stomach-sleeping can worsen neck pain, back pain and gastric reflux.
‧ The use of pillows can help people adapt to new sleep positions. Cervical pillows and knee pillows are good for back sleeping, and knee pillows and back pillows for side sleeping. No pillow or a pillow under the hips is good for stomach sleeping.
‧ Children sleep well in any position; however, infants under 1 year of age should follow the phrase “Back to Sleep…Foot to Foot.” That is on their backs with their feet at the foot of the bed and the covers no higher than their arm pits. This position has been shown to reduce the incidence of sudden infant death syndrome by more than 70 percent.
Find a sleep position that works for you and help improve your quality of sleep to get your best night’s rest.
RSS