This article is a transcribed edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in May of 2024. For the original video go to https://youtu.be/0mlPBsf7LIc
Mike: Have you ever woken up sore and achy, but you can't figure out why? Well, maybe because of your sleeping position.
Brad: While there isn't one bad universal position that people can sleep in, we're going to show you and guide you toward the most comfortable position for yourself.
Mike: This will pertain to back sleepers, side sleepers, and stomach sleepers. We're going to talk about all of them and how to optimize the position for you.
Brad: Perfect, let's go to it. Now if you're a back sleeper, we're going to show you one common mistake people make for their head and neck, and then a way to first fix knee and back pain. Go ahead, Mike.
Mike: So first, with neck pain, often people may have more than one pillow or a super thick pillow. And as you can see, my neck is very flexed. My chin is almost touching.
Mike: Most people won't sleep exactly like this, but to some extent with a flexed neck. So what you can do is simply take out one pillow. Most people are fine simply sleeping with one pillow. Obviously, with side sleeping, you may need two. We'll get into that in a little bit. But what you want to do is have a nice neutral spine from your neck to your upper back and that'll alleviate any neck pain you may be having.
Brad: Well put, Mike, very well put. Now let's talk about knee pain, hip pain, and low back pain. This is a trick that I personally use when I get a little sore and I've had many patients over the years feel very happy and grateful for it. Simply put one, two, usually two pillows under the knees. You need it to get a little bit higher and that flexes the knees, a little flexion in the hips, and it takes the stress off that low back. Really can make your sleeping habits go much better. Not really a habit, but you know what I mean.
Mike: Your sleeping pattern position.
Brad: There you go.
Mike: The next position we're going to address is side sleepers. First, we're going to talk about hip, back, and knee issues you may be having in this position. So if people are lying on their side, sometimes your knees can get uncomfortable because they're knocking together. Sometimes people put a blanket in between them. But the best option is oftentimes a pillow. It can either be a small throw pillow. However, some people may need to have their whole leg at the same level to eliminate any hip pain they may be having. So in that case, you can use a large pillow, and there you go.
Brad: I like the full pillow, but some may like the throw pillow, and actually they make knee pillows that you can buy and they fit really well.
Mike: I actually have one.
Brad: You have one?
Mike: It's quite comfortable, yeah.
Brad: You should have brought it in.
Mike: I should have, but I forgot.
Brad: That's right, let's go to the next one.
Mike: Now, another benefit of this pillow being in this position is it prevents you from rolling over onto your stomach. So some people, which I have done sometimes, I did it last night and I woke up like this, and my spine was all twisted and my back hurt.
Mike: So sometimes just having a pillow in that position can help. Mine actually prevents me from rolling over because there's a pillow in the way.
Brad: We don't need to know about your personal problems. Let's go on to the next one.
Mike: There's too many of them.
Brad: All right, we want to address the neck and shoulder pain. Let's have Mike start talking.
Mike: So again, with this, we want the neck in a neutral position. If I go up and down from a side profile with one pillow and my shoulder size, this is not good. I am going to get too much strain on my neck. So some solutions are to either take your one pillow, fold it up there, I'm higher up in a position, stress off my shoulder, my neck is more neutral. Or you can simply take a second pillow and place it in there. Now it doesn't really matter what brand pillow, whatever is comfortable for you, just get your neck in a nice neutral position like this.
Brad: There you go. It all really depends on how broad your shoulders are as far as the pillow thickness or whatever is going to work. So Mike has got those massive shoulders. He might even need three pillows. Anyways, let's go on. All right, now we're going to address shoulder pain as a result of sleeping on your side. Let's go through it, Mike.
Mike: So the optimal position would be to lay on your good shoulder if you're able to. Now sometimes if your arm is across your chest, it can cause some pain. So you can take a pillow or two to place underneath your arm here. So depending upon what's comfortable for you, you could be side or directly under your armpit. Just oftentimes getting some space in there can help alleviate that shoulder pain you're experiencing.
Brad: Sometimes if you add another pillow under there, that can help. You really need a lot of pillows when it comes to this routine.
Mike: Now if you are someone who has to sleep on the side of the painful shoulder for whatever reason, you can try and create a canal. You're going to need another pillow. It can be a throw pillow or a large pillow, whatever fits your fancy. So you're going to put it under your trunk, and the canal is where my shoulder is going to rest, and this can help take some pressure off of the shoulder joint. It is now going more through my ribs and upper body and my neck, taking the pressure off there.
Brad: Right, this is one that Bob commonly uses. So yep, I call it the Eerie Canal.
Mike: Is it eerie?
Brad: Yeah. It does work well. All right, let's go to the next one. A common thing is the wrist. And this could be in any position, whether your backside or whatever. Look at his wrist, it's flexed like this to the maximum.
Brad: That can be a really good way to irritate numbness in the hand, tingling, et cetera. So we need to keep the wrist in neutral. It's one of those things that we've had people actually wear comfortable wrist splints, generic ones, simple ones, just to eliminate that. Mike, what else do we have in this position?
Mike: So if you're a stomach sleeper and you're having some back discomfort, what you can do is place a pillow roughly around your waistline like I have here. This can help keep the pelvis and lower back in a neutral position. Again, sometimes people get too extended and arched if there's no pillow there. This can be very uncomfortable for some people who have stenosis.
Brad: Yeah.
Mike: So simply putting a pillow in there really helps.
Brad: That's exactly right. A couple of other things: if you are a stomach sleeper, and you probably have found this, avoid hands over your head. That stresses the shoulder joint and can actually cause numbness and tingling from the brachial plexus nerves being compressed or blood flow as well.
Mike: And sometimes as well, people have their neck cranked all the way to one side. This is going to get very uncomfortable. You wake up with neck pain, if you could somehow change the degree to a point that's more optimal, it can relieve that strain.
Brad: There you go. All right.
Mike: So the last problematic pain area for side sleepers sometimes can be the hip. So let's say it's my left hip and I'm sleeping on it. What we can try to do is place a pillow again under your trunk. It's not going to be as high as we had for the canal in the last one, but sometimes this will help take pressure directly off of the hip. It's more on the pelvis region now taking the support.
Mike: If you're in this position and you want to try this as well, you can put a pillow underneath your feet like this. This will get a different rotational component in your hip. So if you're having hip pain and sometimes even back pain, this little bit can help.
Brad: Right. We even had this help reduce sciatica going down the leg just by doing this. It's one of those things you can try. If it works, you'll notice it, then keep it in. If not, let's put it off to the side. So hopefully there are a few things that you could pick up from one of those corrections that we offered. Try them out and you'll find yourself sleeping better. Now we also want to relate this to standing up posture, because that's critical as well. Mike.
Mike: So if you want to check out videos on how to improve your posture, which can help you get in some of these positions a little more optimal, check out "Perfect Posture In 18 Days - 6 Minute Routine".
Brad: That's right, perfect posture in 18 days, six-minute routine. I think I made that video. So it's obviously a very good one.
Mike: Obviously.
Brad: I hope so. Who knows?
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