Incorrect sleeping postures can affect your entire body, causing immediate pain and long-term damage. Poor sleeping posture interacts with existing conditions, such as shoulder injuries and osteoarthritis, to make them worse. Misalignment of the spine can affect muscles, joints, organs, and nerves, causing back and neck pain, as well as remote body pain. However, this situation can be prevented and cured by paying attention to how you position your body in your sleeping environment.
Why does your back hurt when you sleep? Influential factors
Spinal degeneration can induce pain at night or upon waking, but this condition will persist during the day as well. People who experience back pain only after sleeping probably have chronic problems with their posture or their sleeping environment. Secondary causes of back, shoulder, and neck pain can include stress and anxiety that create muscle tension and promote a tightly wound sleeping position. The National Sleep Foundation reports that nighttime exercise, as well as ingesting snacks, caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol shortly before bedtime, can also have negative effects. The main causes of painful sleep may have more to do with poor sleeping posture.
Your mattress
Many people use mattresses that misalign the spine, neck, and head. While other people err on the opposite side of caution when buying a mattress that is too firm. Either extreme can cause chronic back pain. Body type is still the criterion for choosing the firmness of the mattress and your sleeping partner may have different needs.
Softer, but not sagging, mattresses are better suited to people whose waists are narrower than their hips. These mattresses aid sleep posture by absorbing increased pelvic weight. People whose hips and waists are of equal proportions can benefit from firmer, but not hard, mattresses.
Your pillow
The American Physical Therapy Association advocates that proper sleeping posture depends on a pillow that supports the natural curve of the cervical spine or neck. Multiple or fluffy pillows can contribute to back pain and should not be used. Regular pillows, foam and fiberfill break down over time and can cause the onset of back pain and neck.
Replacing pillows regularly or selecting pillows made from special materials, such as water-refillable pillows or those made from memory foam or memory foam promote good sleeping positions. Pillows that are thinner in the center and thicker at the ends are designed to provide cervical support for back and side sleepers.
Your posture
If incidents of back pain are isolated, they may be the result of an occasional tummy sleeping position . The American Chiropractic Association advises against this sleep posture which puts pressure on each of the three natural curves of the spine, lumbar, thoracic and cervical.
Sleeping on your side can create a pain-inducing pelvic tilt, and sleeping on your back can stress the lumbar spine region. The ACA suggests avoiding these risks by placing a pillow between your knees when you sleep on your side and below your knees when you sleep on your back.
What is the best posture to avoid pain in bed?
Possible sleep reasons for neck or back pain are having too little space in bed, curling too much for the comfort of internal organs, and improper body alignment. Sleeping on your stomach, even for short periods, can cause back and neck pain due to the exaggerated position of the cervical and thoracic spine curves. If this position feels comfortable, your standing posture may be causing too great an arch in your lower back, a condition called lordosis that is often responsible for neck pain.
A firm mattress may not offer the best support for everyone. Your body type plays an important role in whether the mattress fits your body or vice versa. Hourglass figures work best with a softer mattress that better absorbs the proportional weight of the pelvis. People with a less pronounced waistline enjoy better alignment with a firmer mattress. Similarly, a soft pillow can provide inadequate support for the neck and shoulders.
Aligning your spine in bed can provide immediate relief from neck and back pain. The American Chiropractic Association suggests using an orthopedic pillow that encourages proper neck sleeping position. It should be thicker for side sleepers and thinner for back sleepers. Some pillows are designed to fit both types. Also, you can ease back pain when you sleep on your side by placing a small pillow between your knees . If you sleep on your back, placing a longer pillow under your knees will reduce pressure on the cervical and thoracic areas.
Check your standing posture
Check your standing posture for your impact on the sleeping position and back pain. Stand against a wall with one arm behind your head and palm toward your neck. Place the other arm behind the lumbar curve of your lower back, palm facing the wall. If you can move your hands freely in this position, you should have your posture evaluated by a chiropractor or doctor. Abdominal and other exercises are often used to correct poor posture habits.
Sudden, disabling, stabbing back or neck pain, numbness, or tingling may indicate a sudden compression fracture or one that affects the nerves. You should seek a doctor's diagnosis regarding the severity of any vertebral fracture.
