Sleeping is an important activity in life. Sleep is your power charger that allows your body to repair and fit your day. Getting sufficient rest assists our body in preventing heart diseases, being overweight and also gives time to our immune system to build up its defenses against foreign microorganisms. In addition to this, sleep also helps our brain to function smoothly. Better sleep leads to a better mood which ultimately helps us become more productive and strengthens our memory.
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Therefore, lack of sleep deteriorates one's health and affects the person's mood and lifestyle. So people of all ages should pay attention to their sleep schedules.
Problems Associated with Sleep Positions
Having a good posture is no doubt an essential characteristic of anyone's life. However, it is not only limited to standing and sitting. It is also necessary for people to maintain a good posture during their sleep. As humans spend one-third of their lives in bed, paying attention to the sleeping posture is needed. It all depends upon the alignment of your spinal cord, and if there is any misalignment, stress transfers to your limbs, jaws, and hip bones which makes you feel like someone has given you a good beating during your sleep. If you have the same experience, it is time to be concerned about your sleeping positions and bring about profound changes.
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So, the medical problems linked with your sleeping style are mainly related to the position of the vertebrae. If they are not in a coordinating role, it is most likely to cause strain in other skeleton parts. Suppose you sleep in an awkward posture. As for the long-term effects may lead to obstruction of air passage and ultimately become the cause of breathing difficulties. Besides this, it is also probable that you can suffer from back pain that won't leave your side for a long time and severely affect your daily activities. So trust me, pay attention to this issue.
Major Sleeping Positions
As mentioned earlier, sleeping styles significantly impact our health, and different sleeping styles have other pros and cons. With more than 6 billion, not all people may have the same sleeping positions and habits. So, for his reason, many sleeping positions have made their way into our lives. Here we will discuss a handful of these postures.
Sleeping on Stomach
Approximately 7% of the total population has this habit. They face downwards with their stomach. That may seem comfortable, but it has some severe drawbacks. Our neck and spine are not in a neutral state and puts pressure upon our limbs.
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It may lead to severe back pain and neck pain. Furthermore, it exerts pressure on the nerves and may become the cause of numbness and muscle pains.
Fetal Position
In modern times, sleeping with your arms and legs bent up to the stomach is a significant habit, especially among females. This position is of great benefit for pregnant women as it promotes blood circulation in the mother and the fetus.
But it also exerts tremendous pressure on your knees and hips, which you can ease with the use of a soft pillow between your knees.
Side Sleeping
By far, sleeping on one side has more popularity, and Researchers have shown that it has many benefits. It allows the spine to rest in a neutral posture so that there won't be any significant orthopedic problems. The air passage remains unobstructed, so breathing becomes more efficient during sleep. However, sleeping on the side can also result in wrinkles on your face.
Sleeping on Back Advantages
Our main topic for today was to discuss the merits of back sleeping. Many researchers and scientists have regarded sleeping with the face-up as the best sleeping posture. Based on the information that we mentioned below can help you understand it fully.
Best for Spine Health
Modern-day studies have shown that our sleeping position significantly impacts our skeletal system and its working. Sleeping with the face-up allows the spinal cord and vertebral column to rest in a balanced state that restricts pressure build-up on our hind—fore-limbs as well as our nerves. If you sleep like this, you would not have any serious problems associated with your back and neck, and if so, it would not be imperative.
Great for Muscles
Sleeping on your back can help you reduce the tension around your muscles, especially your shoulders, neck, and surrounding muscles. Alleviating pressure from the forces minimizes the anxiety and relaxes the muscles, which allows you to have a good night's sleep.
Prevents Acid Reflux
If you had a heavy night meal and go to bed without any exercise or allow the food to digest, then acid reflux will be your biggest fear. Sometimes it can be very torturing. But, if you sleep with your face up and a pillow under the neck, it would be easy to avoid such problems. That is so because when your neck is slightly above your stomach, it would also elevate the esophagus so the acid movement from your stomach to the esophagus won't defy gravity.
Helps Avoid Sleep Lines and Wrinkles
People who sleep with their face turned over on one side always have experienced things like facial wrinkles and the sudden appearance of fine lines on their faces, especially on the temples, around the eyes, and back to the neck. However, back sleeping helps you to avoid any contact between your face and the bed. It will allow people to have relatively smooth skin. According to dermatologists, back sleeping can also become the cause of rapid turnover of the face, which is the way of the body cells in the front to remove dead cells and replace them with new cells.
Less Puffy Eyes and Swelling of Face
Sleeping in the back can help reduce the puffiness of the eyes and the swelling of the face whenever you wake up. That is most common in people who sleep on one side as it allows body fluid to gather around your eyes and gives the impression of swelling, which is, of course, not permanent. But sleeping with face-up can minimize this problem to the greatest extent, and you can wake up confidently without any swelling.
Relieves Sinus Build-up
One of the most troublesome consequences of poor sleep can be the accumulation of mucus in your nose and thoracic cavity. That is because many bacteria, microbes, and allergens block the opening of the sinuses and then lead to severe congestion in the body. Symptoms can be nausea, coughing, headache, and pain in several parts of the body. Researches have shown that the link between congestion and sleeping posture is powerful. So our sleeping position has a significant effect on the health of the thoracic cavity. Sleeping with the face-up and at a higher elevation than the heart can help you counter such problems as it stops the accumulation of mucus in the nose and sinuses. Additionally, it will also prevent blood flow from gathering in the nose.
How to Sleep on Back
With the benefits stated earlier, you will have tempted to sleep on your back as soon as possible. But don't go anywhere without reading our guide on how to sleep on your back properly.
It is not as tricky as you might think. Just taking some simple steps will help you to achieve a better quality of sleep. So let's get started;
Choosing the Right Mattress
When thinking about a mattress, the first to pop to mind would be a mattress as soft as a marshmallow. But this type of bedding is the most troublesome to sleep in because you will keep sinking in the bed and wake up several times during the night, disturbing your sleep pattern. Therefore, a firm mattress that will keep you back aligned should be the best choice to invest money into it.
Having the right pillow under your neck
When sleeping on your back, you must maintain normal cervical curvature. So it would be best if you chose a pillow that is the right size for your neck. If it is too low, it will harm the cervical curvature, and if it is over-elevated, it won't work either.
Placing pillows under back and knees
To keep the spinal cord aligned is the most significant demand in sleep. While sleeping with face-up, you should be careful not to mess around with the natural cervical curvature. For this purpose, doctors recommend that you place two regular pillows under your knees and one thin pillow or even a bath towel under your back to help yourself maintain the alignment of the vertebrae. It will significantly alleviate the pressure around your limbs, and you can wake up without any stiffness.
Do some little exercise and stretching before bed.
If you have trouble falling asleep, then it would be an excellent choice to do some slight stretching and focus around areas like the neck, back, and knees. It should help you improve the circulation of blood around these body parts, which will help you get better rest and good quality of sleep.
Spread out your limbs
If you sleep when your face is up and like a mummy, you would likely wake up with stiffness in your arms and legs. By spreading out the arms and legs, you will shift the pressure on your limbs constantly, which will assist you to avoid stiffness and muscle cramps, etc.
Who should AVOID sleeping on their backs?
You should know that nothing in this world is perfect, and anything would have at least some drawbacks and restrictions. It is the same case for sleeping with the face-up.
There are several types of people who should avoid sleeping on their backs. Firstly, people who have Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and snoring habits should not use this method to fall asleep as it can alleviate their problems. Secondly, pregnant women in the last stages should also not get used to sleeping on their backs as it can result in severe changes and may lead the child to be stillborn.
The Final Analysis.
It has been proven through several types of research that sleep position is linked directly with the quality of sleep.
Sleeping in the back-otherwise known as the Supine Position, is beneficial for the back and the spinal cord as it helps us keep the spine aligned and has multiple other benefits. However, it can be troublesome for people with conditions like OSA or women pregnant in the later stages and may bring about negative consequences.
We must also remember that it is natural for people to change positions during sleep to sleep with their face up, but who knows that you may wake up with the face down.
So, analyzing objectively, you can conclude that those who want to sleep on their back should do it, and those who don't want to then what's the point of exerting time to change sleep positions. But, if people wake up with back pain or other painful conditions, it is best to consult an orthopedic surgeon to get exceptional advice.
I humbly hope you learned something new from this article and had a good experience reading it. Don't forget to tell us about your experience while sleeping on your back or in any other way.
Peace Out!!!
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