Yeah they always say sleeping on your back as best. But they say that it makes you snore. I trained myself to sleep on my back when I was in the military and it changed my life.
Or be in a car accident and have them cut you open from sternum to waist to stop all the internal bleeding, I promise you will figure out how to sleep on your back and not want to lay on your stomach for months. (the regular doses of Fentanyl and Dilaudid probably also helped)
sometimes, I'm like damn, i really jammed up my body bmxing and, well, self-destructing, and then I see some other folks horror stories, and i am really thankful that the two worst things I did to my body was dislocate my hip, and absolutely eat dirt coming off a jump, breaking three of my fingers, five ribs, cracking my orbital and jaw hinge, and shattering my wrist. Oh and the horrifying concussion. that, that, however, I do not recommend. I had to sleep on my back for months after that, and I still have to be mindful about my ribs, and sleeping on my side.
When I broke my right ankle and was bedridden for the first month, I thought it would force me to learn how to sleep on my back (as a life long sleep-only on-my-right-side-er)
Instead, after attempting it the first night, I learnt that I'd rather lay there uncomfortable and learn how to ignore the giant heavy cast on my side than sleep on my back
Severely injured my back, very quickly found sleeping on either side was excruciating. I became accustomed to sleeping on my back in a single night because to do anything else caused immense pain.
Now even though I’m fully recovered I still default to my back, and remain so still as I sleep that sometimes my back ends up stiff and achey in the morning due to a lack of any movement for hours at a time.
Sometimes I try to off set it by doing small back exercises in bed if I wake up in the night. Anything to get a little movement and keep my muscles from being rigid all night.
Some people also do this thing where they exhale in puffs. My grandmother did it, my mom does it, and (according to my wife) I'm starting to do it too.
Snoring is usually due to the collapse or partial collapse of the soft palette, which then can block your airway. Although nasal airway obstructions can create a similar noise, it’s typically some form of sleep apnea.
Yeah this is an important caveat. If you're overweight you're likely at risk for sleep apnea and sleeping on your back is far worse then. So much so that I had a doctor suggest duct taping a tennis ball to my back to make sure I don't roll onto my back during the night.
Pay attention to your ribs if you side-sleep every night. If your arms are in front of you and your chest sinks in, it can cause/exacerbate issues like costochondritis.
I fall asleep easiest on my side, but I have to either drape my top arm over a pillow in front of me, or put a pillow behind me and kinda roll back onto it so my arm stays back and my chest stays open. I get back/chest pain if I sleep all curled up for a few nights in a row, and it's because the rib joints are unhappy.
Oh my god this is explains everything. I randomly get bouts of costochondritis for no apparent reason but I'm a side sleeper and I'm sure this is happening. Thank you!
And heart problems can make breathing while lying on your back harder too. I was always a side/stomach sleeper but after developing heart problems I literally wake up gasping if I fall asleep on my back.
Yes absolutely, it's shocking what a difference it can make when you get it treated. I could sleep half the number of hours a night now and still feel more rested than I did a year ago.
It's funny you say back sleeping avoids sleep paralysis, when it's literally how you should "sleep" if you want to try and induce it. I looked up how to do it a while ago and the best method is to lay on your back. I've tried it on my side and my stomach but it's so much harder to cause. So I'm really curious as to why the back is the best place to try and cause sleep paralysis, but apparently is also how you want to sleep to try and prevent it lol. I've only ever heard back sleeping is more likely to cause it
Makes sense. The demon can’t sit on your chest if you’re on your side. I guess it could sit on your back if you slept on your stomach, but then it wouldn’t be able to see your reaction, so it probably wouldn’t bother, right?
The most commonly scientifically explained answer i've seen is an ancient reflex inherited from our primate ancestors that used to sleep on tree branches, You don't wanna wake up and fall , fifteen stories
Can concur on the sleep paralysis. Used to suffer almost every night from it but since I started sleeping on my side it’s maybe a once a year thing. Has to be right side for some reason tho and facing the door
My stupid body can only fall asleep on the side, but then turns onto my back during the night, making my head too high and causing neck pain. I also naturally sleep in a pose that causes severe neuropathy in my arms 🤩
Might be worth getting a different pillow. I’m a side sleeper who had neck pain and was starting to get the arm tingles. I bought a pillow cube and most of the problems vanished literally overnight.
I fell asleep in a weird position apparently all night a few years back. Lost the ability to bend the top joint of my thumb. Like at all. You don't realize how important that one joint can be lol. Multiple tests and electro shocks, the doctor said it might never come back. 2 and a half years later it did! It had been so long I still light a lighter with my middle finger out of habit. Tldr: watch out for that.
if I try to sleep on my back I feel this uncontrollable force pulling me to my side. I’m a side sleeper but trying to be a back sleeper because side sleeping has been pinching my arm nerves as of late.
So this is why people have sleep apnea but what's really happening is your jaw position is off and your tongue has forgotten how to lie in your mouth properly. If you close your mouth and pull you bottom jaw forward you can usually see how much easier it is to breathe in. Your tongue should be kind of on the roof of your mouth in the middle and a lot of us are mouth breathing, mouth should be closed. I've recently been on a path of trying to fix my fucked up health and figuring out I'm shallow breathing all the time and standing wrong is crazy. But yeah with standing too, flat back, think of a string pulling up from the top of your head. Then move your hips into a straight ahead neutral position, kind of sit on your tailbone and that will naturally bend your knees WHICH I HAD NO IDEA I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DOING. okay that's all I got 👍
Dude I had a several week sleep study done on me. I had mild apnea when I was a competitive marathon runner. They told me I was the thinnest person they ever had in the facility (a super busy san francisco based kaiser center). The doctors were crazy confused because I had a resting heart rate of 35-40 while sleeping and I kept setting off all the sensors but my oxygen sat was like 100%. They put all these machines in my mouth to try and get it in the right position. The consensus was the same that my dentist gave me without all the prodding and sleep deprivation: my tongue is way way too large and its choking me when I sleep. It also pushes all my teeth out of the way. No matter how many times I have them corrected my tongue is just constantly pushing them outward.
So i just tilt my head back further and stick my tongue out a little. Dry tongue, better dental health, less snoring.
Yeah, almost every time I've experienced it, it's been after falling asleep on my back. Usually, it's also while sleep deprived and/or sick, and falling asleep faster than usual, before I've rolled to my side. I'm more likely to have falling dreams or nightmares when on my back, as well.
Fair enough point and I get your perspective, but, here’s an odd one from me - I actually am honestly practically afraid of back-sleeping by now, and it’s because of this important reason: I find I tend to get a lot of sleep-paralysis from it, at least more than usual/from other sleep positions at least, if my memory is right.
Just in terms of comfortableness, from my perspective and much of the time, sleeping on the side + with the big soft pillow between the legs (and perhaps even cuddling another pillow with the arms/upper-body) is KING. Something about that shit is SO DAMN COMFORTABLE.
Funnily enough, I’m pretty sure I came up with doing that independently, before ever hearing about how it’s a healthier/better sleep-posture if you’re sleeping on your side, to reduce muscular strain or a bad posture putting stress on your legs or core and back or whatever. Namely, sleeping with the pillow in between your legs if you’re sleeping on your side.
It’s usually curled up in a fetal position, too, almost automatically, even if I don’t necessarily consciously go to sleep like that, though I often find myself waking up like that (when it’s not the dreaded sleep-paralysis).
Just something I found interesting, although I do ramble a lot, sry, so may not be as interesting to others.
Here’s the summary from DuckDuckGo’s AI (an alternate search-engine to Google with a bit better privacy policies) (I’m sorry if you hate AI, I actually mostly agree and do, too, but it’s just convenient in this case, like quoting Wikipedia):
>Yes, sleeping on your back can increase the likelihood of sleep paralysis because this position narrows the airway and can lead to more frequent awakenings during REM sleep, where sleep paralysis typically occurs.
I don't feel as 'secure' when I sleep on my back if that makes sense? It's like having a view of the whole room just feels like a lot, whereas on my back I just put the sheets over my head and it feels like I'm in a safe little bunker lol
For me it kills my hips. It puts a lot of pressure on them unless I shove a pillow just right under my hip to lift it, which doesn't always work. If im on my stomach there's a lot of positions I can do where it doesn't hurt or to alleviate the pressure (like bending knee upwards). And a pillow under my hip there isn't as uncomfortable. Honestly sleeping on my back just feels like a lot of extra pressure everywhere most of the time, but it's mainly in my hips that it sucks. And the back of my head too actually. Super hard to find a position that doesn't just start making the back of my head feel that pressure numbness that isn't quite numbness
I'm a side sleeper whose suboccipital muscles do NOT like that part about me. And back is banned during pregnancy because it can cut off blood flow to the womb (causes stillbirth)...
Stomach sleeping is the easiest position to breath in. Proning patients with severe respiratory problems is an easy way to reduce the strain on their lungs and muscles.
The older I get, the more comfortable its feels to lie on my back. So usually when I go to bed I'll just chill like that for like half an hour. But I'm too scared of sleep paralysis to actually fall asleep like that. 😅
Luckily I've never had full-blown sleep paralysis, but I've had auditory sleep paralysis a few times before (maybe it was full-blown but I realized what it was so I didn't open my eyes until the sounds were gone) and even just that was enough to keep me from sleeping on my back, lol.
I call it Sleep-nado, and I do it everynight. I cannot stay in any one position for very long. My husband sleeps on his back with his hands clasped together on his chest, just 100% opposites.
Oh, I do that, apparently. But I do sleep with my childhood plush, so I guess on one side it's learned behaviour and on the other side, the plush avoids me from cramping my arms too much?
I thought to myself I'll go to medical school, I'll practice for a while, and then I'll come back to it but I forgot how to do it. I lost it. Don't lose your dinosaur.
It’s if you wake up with your hands curled into your chest. Apparently it’s the only sleep position that doctors actually agree is concerning if done consistently because it can cause nerve damage.
I did this for a long time and now I hold a pillow instead, which really helps. Your hand can curl naturally over the edge of the pillow so it doesn’t get contorted.
Yeh I was waking up every morning with such bad pains in my hands and wrists it sucks. Got a teddy to cuddle at night and it helped a lot so now I'm a grown woman with a teddy!
Apparently it's common in the neurodivergent, checks out...
Good thing humans don't actually need sleep I have been awake for four days and have never been this productive first I divorced my wife then I bought meth with all of our savings and now I have been playing balatro in 12-hour sessions only taking breaks to masturbate and growl at neighbors this is PEAK HUMAN PERFORMANCE also I am a doctor.
It comes down to everyone’s posture and spine, hips, and shoulders are all completely different. The force you put on them and exercise will also impact this. Same with the size of hips and what parts are heavier than others.
You know who doesn’t complain about sleep pain? Children. Why? Because they are flexible and don’t have years of repetitive injury or poor posture.
Doctors and physical therapists are going to try to address current pain and known injuries, and the answer will be different for everyone.
Forexample I have heavy pelvis and big ass muscles. If I lay on my back the pelvis tilts weirdly and puts my lower back in very uncomfortable position that hurts fast.
This was the case long before I was over-weight. In side-position my spine can get relaxed in natural position as long as my pillow stack is high in optimal way.
Another position that suits me well is other side hand and leg straight akd other side knee and elbow bend. For this I need a flat pillow.
I have pile of pillows and grab/stack what ever I need. And I need a mattress that slightly lets my pelvis sink so that the spine is good side ways.
I just sleep at an angle on my stomach BUT not all the way so I'm half on my side half on my stomach and I'm usually hitting the yearner pose and hugging my pillow or I'm curled up in a ball next to it like a dog
"You might think it's uncomfortable not having a mattress and a pillow. Without gravity, of course, you don't need anything to hold you up. You can just completely relax. You don't even need a pillow! In space, you don't even have to hold your head up. So you can relax every muscle in your body. Your arms float up in front of you. Your head tips forward."
Yeah same. I will say now though I randomly wake up with numb fingers like I am pinching a nerve... Sometimes it's not an issue though so I'm trying to figure out a way to avoid that happening.
This has also been happening to me recently. My doctor said it's probably carpal tunnel in my case and suggested I sleep with wrist braces on. If the numbness is primarily in your thumb, index, and middle fingers then it's probably carpal tunnel. If it's in your ring and pinky fingers then it's probably tennis elbow.
No sleeping position is bad for you, so long as it’s comfortable and not putting any strain on your body. Getting a good night’s sleep cancels out any amount of harm the position does to you. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something
Ok serious question: what exactly is “dinosaur hands”? Is it like the end position of Elle Wood’s “bend and snap”?
And what’s the rest of your body doing? Are you just sleeping on your back with your little paws perched up in the air? I really dont get it. And why is it bad for you?
Because your body was designed for itinerant tree dwellers turn plains walkers and there hasn’t been an effective update in several hundred thousand years.
Also there’s another secret obstacle to finding a good sleep position: my boobs seem to make every sleep position uncomfortable. Sleeping on my stomach is impossible because it hurts my boobs. Sleeping on my back is sometimes uncomfortable because they rest in opposite directions. Recently I’ve found that sleeping at a 45 degree angle on my side is the most comfortable. Also wedging a pillow or part of my comforter under my boobs when I’m sleeping on my side is more comfortable
I'm glad my rheumatologist doesn't care what position I sleep in because I'm at least getting sleep. Sleeping on my stomach is one of the few positions that doesn't cause a lot of pain for me. Sleeping on my back is the most painful.
Because it's a game of trade-offs not "don't do this one, this one's bad", at least I think. The way to look at it is "choose your fighter, they all have pros and cons" and not "this option totally breaks the meta, everyone should pick it", if the analogy makes sense.
Have had to re-train myself to do the side sleeping with knee pillow thing and now I really miss tucking one knee really high up and stretching the other leg out completely opposite. Idk why but it felt so nice. My back apparently didn't agree though, and what the back wants, it gets until I magically get a futuristic reinforced spine.
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u/qualityvote2 6d ago edited 4d ago
u/FandomFever221, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...