Quality Sleep, what is it and why you aren't getting enough of it! (part 2)

Quality Sleep, what is it and why you aren't getting enough of it! (part 2)
October 24
by Adam Rathfon
Pennsylvania Health Examiner

ello again. We started to discuss yesterday the need for quality sleep and some simple ways to improve your sleep quality. Today I thought we would delve a little deeper into the topic. If you are thinking why is a chiropractor so concerned about sleep, there is a very simple answer to that. You spend approximately one third of your life asleep, if you can name me one other activity that takes up that much of your life, I will gladly talk about that first instead.

The patients that frequent my office usually ask me the same few questions about sleep. First; what is the best sleeping position. Second what kind of pillow/mattress is best, and third how much sleep do I need? I answered the second question in yesterdays post. Today i will talk about the first and third (as well as a few other things.)

The best position for you to sleep is on your back with a small pillow behind your knees. This position keeps your spine in as neutral a posture as possible while at the same time relieving some of the stress on the pelvis by keeping the knees bent. Keeping your posture neutral, or the same as it would be standing up is the best for both the muscles that attach to the spine and to the disc's that act as shock absorbers to the spine. The next best position to sleep in would be lying on your side with your neck straight. To help you visualize this a little better... As you can see from this picture her neck is in a right flexed position, she is sleeping on too fluffy, or too many pillows. This causes the muscles on her left side to be stretched all night long which makes them too loose and difficult to coordinate. The muscles on her right side are conversely contracted all night which creates to spasming like symptoms. The correct sleeping posture for your neck would look like... In this picture you can see her neck is properly positioned between her shoulder's it is not drooping towards the bed, nor is it propped up to the ceiling.

The third sleeping position some people find themselves in is sleeping on your stomach. This is a bad position for your upper body especially the neck and shoulders. When we sleep on our stomachs we have our heads rotated to either side to allow for breathing. This forced rotation does the same as having our head propped up on a pillow, one side gets stretched all night long, the other side is contracted all night, and you end up with a very stiff/sore/miserable neck. And to all you stomach sleepers out there I know what you are saying. I have heard it before hundreds of times. "I don't try to sleep on my side, I just wake up that way." I know you are asleep so you don't mean to do it and even after I tell you not to you still wake up that way. There is a very easy remedy to this. Simply take a pillow and put it either in front of you or behind you while you sleep. As you try to roll over in your sleep you will hit the pillow and it will act as a curb or speed bump and you won't be able to roll over.

As promised also I mentioned yesterday I would include a little homemade sleep apnea treatment. Similar to sleeping with a pillow in front of you to stop from rolling on to your stomach for belly sleepers, take a tennis ball and place it behind you when you are lying on your side. When you go to roll onto your back (which is the sleeping position most apnea occurs) the ball with either stop you or more likely wake you up. This seems kind of antiquated and cruel, but it will train your body not to roll over while you are sleeping and prevent you from having the sleep apnea. For more information on remedies/treatments for sleep apnea I would recommend checking out www.apneanet.org they have some great resources.

Thanks again for joining us. Stop back on Monday we will start into the bread and butter so to speak of chiropractic, starting with headaches.