A good night’s sleep is crucial for healthy, active living. While you’re sleeping, your body heals and grows from the stresses of everyday living, whether that be from sitting for work, standing and cleaning the house, exercising, or anything else you do. Physical therapists know the importance of good sleep hygiene. I’m here to help you figure out the best sleeping positions for you so you can get a good night’ rest to help recover from the day!
The first thing to recognize in figuring out a good sleeping position is to understand that everyone is different. We all come from different predispositions in body shape, size, joint alignment, and muscle stiffness. The tips below should be used as a guideline, not as a hard and fast rule. Let’s start with the most basic position, one we’ve heard time and time again from advice columns, doctors, and physical therapists.
Sleep on your back
Sleeping on your back is generally a good position to sleep in. It works especially well for those who work long hours throughout the day at a desk job; desk jobs tend to pull everything forward for your upper body and create tight hip flexors. Sleeping on your back will naturally allow your body to pull the shoulders back, decrease pec tightness, decrease hip flexor tightness, and help your general body alignment in the sagittal plane.
When you sleep on your back, don’t use an excessively large pillow. You want a pillow that doesn’t push your head too far forward; using an excessively large pillow will exaggerate forward head posture. I would recommend an orthopedic head roll pillow that allows better support for the natural curve of your cervical spine while sleeping on your back.
Sleep on your side
Sleeping on your side can be good for you if done correctly. Sleeping on your side can help especially after you’ve had a shoulder injury because sleeping on the back can cause unnecessary stress and strain on your shoulder. To sleep on your side, you want to use multiple pillows. Your head and neck pillow should be larger to support the head and neck in a neutral spine position. You want to also have a bigger pillow that you can hug with your top arm to help with support and shoulder alignment. Another pillow should be used between the thighs and spans down to the knees to support lumbopelvic alignment while you are sleeping. Ideally, you would not want to curl into a ball either, we want to prevent as much of that forward bend as possible since most of the time we do that all day while we are sitting for work.
Lastly, there really isn’t a time and place for sleeping on your stomach. Unfortunately, sleeping on your stomach predisposes you to poor posture and alignment. However, remember the first message at the beginning of the article is the most important one: a good night’s sleep is crucial for healthy, active living. This means, if you’re a stomach sleeper and have tried the above positions and just can’t sleep unless you’re on your stomach… then just sleep on your stomach. At the end of the day, sleeping well is more important than the position you sleep in.
I hope you had some good takeaways from the above advice! Leave a comment if it was helpful!
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