Friday 171013

• If you frequently toss and turn during sleep, chances are you’re a side sleeper or stomach sleeper. For sound, healthy sleep, you need to sleep on your back, in a neutral position, with a pillow under your neck, not your head, to maintain proper spinal curve
• Poor sleeping position is a common cause of aches and pains. It can also trigger or aggravate arthritic conditions
• If you’re a chronic side sleeper, it may take up to four months to retrain your body to comfortably sleep on your back. It may take even longer if you’re used to sleeping on your stomach

My name is Dr. Peter Martone. I am a chiropractor and an exercise physiologist. This is my “sleep story.” When I think back to my earliest memories when I was a child, I can still remember wanting to sleep on my side, which faced the crucifix on the wall in my room. I felt secure and protected and every morning I would end up at the end of my bed or even on the floor. I never stayed in one position. 

As years passed I continued to be a side sleeper because that is what people do. It is how my doctors told me to sleep; I saw commercials depicting people sleeping on their sides; and my parents even bought me a side sleeper pillow. So, there I was a side sleeper and a non-thinker. I just did what other people told me to do because that is what we do. I was a side sleeper until I started having pain. Then I started thinking about the cause — and my life changed.

How Your Bed and Pillow Affect Your Body Mechanics

Let’s take the two lessons I learned from that movie scene and my episodes of falling asleep in the wrong position and put them together. Beds are made to be more and more comfortable and absorb your body’s weight to decrease pressure points. They support you as you sleep on your side, but what about back in the 19th century? There would be no way you could sleep on your side with just a block of wood and a towel.  

You would be tossing and turning all night long because your body weight would be distributed over a small surface area causing pressure points. The only way you would be able to sleep is on your back, which distributes your weight over the greatest surface area — which is how the actors slept in the movie.

Try lying on your side and watching a two-hour movie. You would not be able to do it without turning (trust me; I tried it). You can only stay on your side for a short time until something either goes numb or gets uncomfortable.

And this is one of the reasons why you toss and turn all night long. The area of the brain that senses pain and the area of the brain that controls sleep are very close. When your body is in pain it wakes up, or the body moves you out of that position (tossing and turning). That reflex is suppressed when you have drugs like alcohol, sleeping pills, pain meds or are extremely tired. So, what happens is that you stay in your abnormal body position (side or stomach sleeping) for prolonged periods of time and pull muscles or sprain ligaments.

Structure Affects Function

Maintaining proper curves of your spine is critically important in helping your body distribute stress when you walk or move. Another way to think about it is that the shape of your spine works like a big spring and acts like a shock absorber. When you lose the curves of your spine, you cause stress points within the spine, and as Davis Law states you will cause scar tissue to develop in those areas of the spine where you lose the curves. This restriction of motion in the joint leads to degeneration (arthritis) in that area.

As a culture, we are spending more and more time on computers, driving or texting on our phones. All of these positions are done in a forward head posture (head forward position). I find that the average person can spend up to eight hours a day in forward head position posture. This must be offset if you want to maintain a natural curve in your cervical spine.

The Importance of Sleep Posture

The only other time you are in one position for another eight hours is at night when you are sleeping. It is important to offset your forward head position posture of your workweek and daily texting habits. Sleep is when your body heals and grows. Sleep is an opportunity for your body to offset or externalize the stressor that you have exposed it to throughout the day.

The only way to do this is to sleep on your back with a pillow under your neck. I repeat: under your NECK (not your HEAD), supporting your cervical spine. We are in the final product design of a pillow what will help you lie on your back and stay on your back. It is important to support your neck and not your head. Supporting your head or using the wrong pillow in the wrong position will reinforce an abnormal curve. Please watch my video at the top to see how to properly use your pillow.

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