Weekly Cup of Joe - Episode #27 - Sleeping Position Tips

Read the transcript for this video:

Good morning! Welcome to your Weekly Cup of Joe. My name is Joe King. I'm the owner of Physical Therapy Advantage in North Aurora and wanted to bring you some tips and pointers today on sleeping posture. We've had a lot of clients recently in the clinic that has been asking us what's the best way to sleep. I'm having difficulty sleeping. They're coming in with shoulder pains, back pains and different types of pains and hip pain. So just wanted to give you some general tips that we talk to our clients about all the time. And hopefully, it helps you as far as allowing you to sleep more comfortably and get a little more restful sleep. That is because if you can't sleep, you really can't heal and you can't really function after a few days of not getting too much sleep.

Just to let you know also, we don't know what we do when we sleep a lot of times, so you can start off on these positions and it's great and allows you to sleep, which is what we want. And you may have less pain, but a lot of times you'll end up in some other position. And you don't know how you get there and stuff like that, and the pillows are gone and the support is gone, but that's okay. You just reposition yourself again and get back to sleep. So, the first thing is we always have talked about trying to be in good posture the whole time and so we want to try to maintain this good upright posture where we're lining our ear holes with our trunk, our shoulders, with our trunk and our hips. So as we're sitting in everything, we're trying to line ear holes, shoulders, trunk, and hips.

When we sit and stand all day long when we want to try to maintain that posture, even while we're laying down while we're sleeping. So we're having good spinal alignment. So when we're lying on our side, you want to watch out, even when you're lining back that you're not having too many pillows or too few pillows. So when you're lying on your side, you want to make sure that your head is supported and it's a good alignment. So if I have one pillow, now you can see how my head is cocked down. So I actually would need two pillows here to keep that good alignment like that. Also, we're big fans and recommendations, and you've probably heard this before, you kind of keep your knees a little bit bent, not too far out front of you, but then you'll put a pillow between your legs. So that also helps with your low back alignment. If you're crossed it like this, now you're contorted and twisted and things are collapsing by having to pillow between your legs, having your head in good alignment. And you still want to think about ears or line up with shoulders. You don't want to have your head too far forward, so you're not curled up and a too much. You still want to be up and down as best as you possibly can and where this arm goes is all a comfort for you. Whether it's underneath the pillows, whether it's out in front of you or some of the positions down a little lower, that doesn't matter. And the same for this top hand as well, so it's comfortable. Also now, if you lay on your back or prefer your back if you can see here two pillows this way, maybe be a little bit too much for me, it may be pushing my head a little too far forward into a flex position. And that would not be good. May feel comfortable now, but for the long haul at night, maybe not so good, so better to be, and have just one pillow, if you're laying on your back.

The other thing that we like to talk about and have people do is to put something underneath their legs. So, you could roll a blanket and put a rubber band around it or tape or something like that. You can use pillows as well, but we just put that underneath you, your legs to sleep, which basically helps unload that low back. So if you're a back sleeper, you can start off on this; that's maybe a little more comfortable for you. So once in your head is not too far forward with too many pillows and you have the support of something underneath your needs. So go ahead and try those tips. Try those positions, try them for a few days, and see what works, like I said, you'll start off in those positions. You may not end up in those positions. You may wake up, but you can reposition yourself and go over. So hopefully, as I say, get a much more restful sleep over the course of the next few nights and you may start feeling better.

You can always call the clinic at (630) 892-8003 if you have any questions about this. Also this coming Monday, a few days, the 22nd of February, we're going to be hosting a Shoulder Pain Workshop and we'll be showing you some more posture positions, and sleeping positions that you can do to modify that will be taking some pressure off and help alleviate some pains and discomforts in the shoulder. So you're more than welcome to join us for that either via zoom or in the clinic. So there'll be a registration link for that workshop right below this. Have a great day and we'll see you next week for your Weekly Cup of Joe. Bye.