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2 Sleeping Positions You Must Avoid (Updated)
- chelsie462
- 2 days ago
- 11 min read
This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in October 2024. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/8hcFN6eChlE
Mike: The topic of the day is, do you wake up having back, shoulder, or neck pain? Because Brad certainly is right now.
Brad: Oh yeah. Well, we're going to talk and actually take a trip down memory lane. We have a video that has been viewed by millions, with some helpful tips. Plus, we're going to show a couple of new tips at the end to amend it.
Mike: So, go back in time.
Brad: Woo woo woo woo woo. It's not that easy. We just can't say don't do this and don't do that.
Bob: We have to give them a reason.
Brad: We're here for a little education so that once you become educated, you understand, and then you do. There's a whole philosophy.
Bob: Sure.
Brad: But we don't want to get into that. But the biggest areas that cause pain are the neck, shoulder.
Bob: And back.
Brad: Right. Those are probably the most common areas that become irritated and painful throughout the night. So we have to take care of this, and address and understand it a little bit. First of all, joints in general, whether it's the joints in your spine, your shoulders, your back, or whatever it may be, your neck, want to stay in what we call the "loose pack" position.
Bob: Right. And they don't like being at the end range.
Brad: Right. So my shoulder here would be loosely packed.
Brad: Up here would be the end range.
Bob: Right.
Brad: Okay?
Bob: Or back here would be the end range.
Brad: Right.
Bob: So I wouldn't sleep like this either.
Brad: Right. So, neck, if we put our neck over to one side this way, or one side that way, all the joints in your neck are pushed to the end range, we call it.
Brad: And that's uncomfortable after a period of time. Initially, it may not be a problem, but, you hold your neck over like this for you know, 20 minutes or more, it becomes uncomfortable. So, keeping that in mind, the next thing we want to do is look at the spine. And not just look at it, but understand the spine moves, and it twists and whatnot. But we want to keep it in a neutral position, Bob.
Bob: Correct.
Brad: Okay. So a neutral position is actually where there's a little curve in the back here. There's a curve in the other direction.
Bob: So we've got a curve in, curve out, curve in.
Brad: Right.
Bob: Yep. Kind of an "S" shape.
Brad: Yep. Keep these curves in, in that kind of a general shape, you know?
Bob: Yeah.
rad: So we're not going way out. And if you look at it from the front view, now that you typically want to keep straight.
Bob: Right.
Brad: So the curves are there in the side view of the spine, and this is looking straight. So this will all come to play when we look at our positioning with sleeping. So, anything else that I missed?
Bob: No, you got it right, Brad. For once.
Brad: Yeah, for once. Well, it happens. I was up studying late last night. So the first position we're going to talk about is prone. Lying on your stomach.
Bob: So this is a bad position.
Brad: Right. This is a bad position because it breaks a number of the rules we just talked about that create pain. It gets you out of that neutral position or puts you at the end range. So if I'm going to lie here, let's just take a regular pillow, Bob once.
Bob: Sure.
Brad: And there are people who sleep prone, and they have for a while, and they do okay with it. But the problem that can really occur when you're, when you're on your stomach, you almost have to have your head in one position over, over to the right or to the left. And that puts my neck at end range, and I'm lying there for a long period of time. Now, I'm assuming people who sleep like this, who don't have pain throughout the night, turn their head right to left.
Bob: Well, the other thing is, though, and I didn't see a study on this, but we did do kind of an informal survey of this at a classroom one time. We asked how many people have headaches. And a hundred percent of the people who lay on their stomachs had headaches.
Brad: Sure. Throughout the day?
Bob: Throughout the day or throughout the week. You know, they had a higher incidence of headaches.
Brad: Okay. Sure.
Bob: So that's something to consider, is that if you are having those headaches that start from the back of the neck, the neck headaches.
How you sleep is one of the things I would definitely look into.
Brad: Sure. And I think, if you are a prone sleeper, you may or may not have a pillow. I guess without a pillow, it puts you more in a neutral position. But still, if you can avoid the prone position for your neck, it's going to be better. And then the other thing is if you lie on your stomach and with your shoulders, if you lie with your arms up, that puts your shoulders at end range, and your brachial plexus can get pinched off, and actually cut the circulation off into your arms or pinch the nerves, and you can wake up with numbness.
Bob: I have. One time, I woke up, both my arms were numb to the point I couldn't use them, and I was trying to turn the alarm off, so I was flumbling around.
Brad: Yeah.
Bob: It's a little embarrassing.
Brad: Right. You know, there's a name for that, Bob. When you put your arms up like this. Working overhead.
Bob: What is it?
Brad: I can't remember.
Bob: I know there's honeymoon syndrome where, if your spouse falls asleep on your arm, that becomes numb then.
Brad: Right. So, next position, Bob. Sidelying. Now this is very common. Most people do, which I do myself. But, oftentimes, a shoulder problem will happen when you're lying on the point of your shoulder, if you will. And the joint, when you relax, you can sublux or actually push the ball, the shoulder joint out slightly, and can put pressure on the ligaments and the capsule, etc, in your shoulder and cause pain. So lying like this on the shoulder can really create some pain. So what you'll want to do is pull this shoulder out a little bit so you're actually on a little bit of a slant here, versus directly on the shoulder.
Bob: And you're getting more on the meaty part of the shoulder that can handle it on the back there.
Brad: Yep. And that's going to help reduce that pressure. So the sidelying can be a problem, but if you do these little twerks that we're talking about, it'll help you out.
Bob: We can show another thing for that, too. But Brad, the other thing, while you're in this position, the other thing is your back is sagging a little bit.
Brad: Sure. When you're in this side-lying position. Yeah. Let's get the spine out and show that.
Bob: So here, you know, it's straight, but now it's going to sag a little bit right here in the low back.
Brad: Yeah. Right.
Bob: And so if you're having back problems, and especially if you sleep like this a lot all the time, you should take a rolled towel like we did here, and you can put it in that position.
Bob: Or there's actually a sleep roll you can buy, by Mackenzie. And this one you can actually tie around your waist, so it's on your back when you sleep on your back, or it's on your side when you sleep on your side.
Brad: Right. Yep. And, you know, in my case, I know I can sleep on my side for about 10 minutes. I never even get to sleep, because my back starts to hurt, then I have to go to my back. But that's just because of my spondylothesis. So this is how this works. This one's a little bit small for me. It doesn't wrap around. But people who have a disc problem often use something like this, so that here you have the support on your lower back in the lordotic section. And then when you roll to either side, you also have that hollow spot being filled in.
Bob: There's another possibility right here besides it being too small for you. Maybe your waist is too big for it.
Brad: Yeah, there you go.
Bob: Just pointing out that possibility.
Brad: Should we show them the trick with the pillows?
Bob: Yeah, sure. Let's do that. Let's pull this right here. So this is a cervical pillow. So, you know, generally when you're on your side, if you're going to lie on your side, you want to have a thicker pillow. So that your neck isn't going to one side. Why don't you take it out, once, Brad? You want to have your neck right in the middle, too. This one would actually need to go up a little bit. So, the other key, we've shown this many times, is actually you take a pillow, a lot of times it's more of a throw pillow, and that's what I use. And I just created the little canal here. And you can put your arm right in there. And now there's not nearly the pressure on your shoulder there was before.
Brad: So this is making sideline tolerable and acceptable to keep the shoulder pain from waking you up.
Bob: And now if you're having pain in this shoulder, and you don't want to lie on it, which is good, then you should actually, besides the canal, well, you might not even need the canal. But you would put a pillow in front of you, and another pillow, and support the arm like this.
Brad: Right. Right.
Bob: And again, it puts that shoulder in that loose-packed position that Brad was talking about. It's not any end range, and it's kind of a little bit forward. And it's not, it's not going to cross the body in front, which is also bad.
Brad: Right. Because then you're getting towards that end range, and irritating them.
Bob: Right here in the middle. That's where you want to keep it at. It's going to do it well.
Brad: Right. And the last thing with sidelying is, a lot of people will get a pillow like this that is memory foam.
Bob: Right. So there's a gap for the neck.
Brad: Right. So you get the neck in a neutral position. And that's not necessary. You can use a regular pillow. I'll have some people try just a towel roll to fill in that gap to get that neutral position in the neck. So if I lie here now with the towel roll, see how it's, it really cradles my neck nicely.
Brad: Right.
Bob: So, and now we don't have the neck sagging either. That's actually pretty comfortable.
Brad: Yeah. If this works, but it's not quite as cushy, you may want to invest in the memory foam. They cost a little more.
Bob: Or there's the cervical roll too. Mackenzie makes a cervical roll too, where you can put it in the pillow. And if you find the towel works well, and you don't want to keep using the towel, you can go and get one of those.
Brad: Right. So, what it boils down to, we have two positions to avoid: the prone, for which we don't have any solutions. And sidelying, we have a number of solutions for that we just went through. So you know, we're helping you out with at least half the problem.
Bob: We're half smart.
Brad: Right. Whoa! And the time machine returns to 2024, and we have Mike with us today. These are in for three positions that weren't mentioned in that film, and Bob said we have to mention these to make this updated. Mike, what are the three?
Mike: Well, it's only two positions, but three remedies. So first, two are for stomach sleepers, and then we have sidelying. So the first one, if you are a stomach sleeper, but you are having some hip or low back pain, take another pillow, place it under your waist, and you're going to lie on that pillow there. What does this do, Brad?
Brad: Well, it actually flexes the hip and the lower back. And if you have stenosis in particular, like me, this makes a tremendous amount of difference in comfort. Simply put it there, adjust it up and down where it feels comfortable, and you'll know, because it'll just make a night and day difference if that's what you need. And what about the neck?
Mike: If you're having some neck pain in your stomach sleeper, I typically use two pillows. I sleep in all positions because I'm a weirdo. Anyway, you place this here; you don't want your neck to be cranked all the way to 90 degrees like this. I've woken up like this, and it's very uncomfortable.
Mike: So oftentimes if you put another pillow kind of underneath your chin, and more at a 45 degree angle, and I'm half talking in the pillow right now, so don't mind me, it's much more comfortable. Obviously, you can't sleep like that. So, a 45-degree angle if you're having some neck discomfort and you're a stomach sleeper.
Brad: Right. We don't say cranked, we say rotated by. This is a family show and a therapy show.
Mike: It's a, it's a medical term, "cranked."
Brad: Anyway.
Mike: Last one, if you're having some hip pain, side hip pain, and you're a side sleeper, what you can try to do is place a pillow underneath your rib cage, kind of above the hip. And then you can also put a pillow underneath your foot. This is going to help rotate your hip in a different way, taking the pressure off your lateral side.
Brad: That's right. A lot of these will help get the spine back in the neutral position, whether it's in the low back or the neck, making it much more comfortable, so you can sleep and relax in that position. We've got another video that will be helpful as well, with more detail.
Mike: Yeah, so if you're having shoulder pain, I don't think we addressed it much in the old video or this one. You can click the video link on the screen, "How To Stop Shoulder Pain in Bed (Sleeping Postures)."
Brad: That's right, and the famous Bob's Eerie Canal Theory and Method to eliminate shoulder pain. And that's what he uses. So if you want to find out what it is, check it out. It's very, very new.
Mike: No water is involved.
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