Sleeping on your left side is thought to have the most benefits to your overall health. Still, either side can offer benefits in terms of sleep apnea and chronic lower back pain relief. You don't have to stick with one side the entire night. Feel free to start on your left side and see how your body feels.
Reflux and heartburn: If you suffer from heartburn, sleeping on your right side can make symptoms worse, Salas says. That's true for people who have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and for people who have heartburn for other reasons, such as pregnant women. Flip to your left side to cool the burn.
There's some evidence that sleeping on your left side may shift your heart and disrupt your heart's electrical current. Also, many people with heart failure report having trouble breathing in this position. Sleeping on your back can worsen sleep apnea and snoring.
Specifically, sleeping on the side or back is considered more beneficial than sleeping on the stomach. In either of these sleep positions, it's easier to keep your spine supported and balanced, which relieves pressure on the spinal tissues and enables your muscles to relax and recover.
Researchers theorize that if we lie on the left side, the stomach and its gastric juices remain lower than the esophagus while we sleep. Boosts brain health. Our minds may benefit from side sleeping because we have gunk there, too.
If you sleep on your right side, the pressure of your body smashes up against the blood vessels that return to your ticker, but “sleeping on your left side with your right side not squished is supposed to potentially increase blood flow back to your heart.” And anything you can do to help your most important organ pump ...
Because blood vessels are located on the right side of the body, doctors believe sleeping on the left side will relieve pressure and help people with high blood pressure.
While research is limited, anecdotal reports show that sleeping without a pillow can help reduce neck and back pain for some sleepers. Stomach sleepers are generally best suited for going pillowless, because the lower angle of the neck encourages better spinal alignment in this position.
Sleeping without a pillow can help some people who sleep on their stomach, but it is not a good idea for everyone. People who sleep on their side or back will usually find that sleeping without a pillow puts pressure on their neck. By doing this, it can ruin a person's quality of sleep and lead to neck and back pain.
The recommended sleeping direction per vastu shastra is that you lie down with your head pointed southward. A north-to-south body position is considered the worst direction.
Sleeping on your left side is thought to have the most benefits to your overall health. Still, either side can offer benefits in terms of sleep apnea and chronic lower back pain relief. You don't have to stick with one side the entire night. Feel free to start on your left side and see how your body feels.
A 2019 study published in Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, showed among 165 participants (45 with diagnosed neurodegenerative disease, 120 controls) a supine sleep position (on back, head at body level) for more than 2 hours per night increased the risk of dementia by almost four times (3.7 times greater).
We recommend side sleeping since it offers more health benefits, such as reducing pressure on the heart. Side sleeping can also reduce snoring, obstructive sleep apnea, and acid reflux symptoms. Back sleeping tends to aggravate these conditions thanks to the effects of gravity.
According to sleep experts, you should sleep with only one pillow under your head, however, preference and sleeping position often take the lead when it comes to considerations for the ideal number of pillows. Read on to learn why we recommend sleeping with a high-quality single pillow.
1) The Fetal Position
The fetal position involves lying on your side with your knees pulled up and your arms curled in towards you. This is the most popular side sleeping position. The most common arm location in the fetal position is slightly in front of you, bent with your hands near your face.
Check out this handy breakdown fromPRNewswire: Overall, more Americans sleep on the right side of the bed than the left (while lying down), with more men than women preferring this side (58% vs. 50%)
Research suggests that wearing socks to bed can help people not only fall asleep faster, but sleep longer and wake up fewer times throughout the night. One study found that young men wearing socks fell asleep 7.5 minutes faster, slept 32 minutes longer, and woke up 7.5 times less often than those not wearing socks.
Quite simply, she said, using a blanket helps us to deal with our lower nightly core body temperatures. It also increases the serotonin and melatonin levels in our brain which helps relax us and fall asleep. “Our circadian rhythm – that's our natural sleep rhythm – is a huge driver for our sleep,” McGinn said.
Darkness is essential to sleep. The absence of light sends a critical signal to the body that it is time to rest. Light exposure at the wrong times alters the body's internal "sleep clock"—the biological mechanism that regulates sleep-wake cycles—in ways that interfere with both the quantity and quality of sleep.
Situating a pillow between your lower half helps keep the knees aligned on top of one another, which in turn keeps your hip and pelvic area aligned. It can also reduce stress on the hips: A firm pillow between the knees can prevent the upper leg from pulling the spine out of alignment.
Wet hair when sleeping also can cause damage to follicles and result in hair breakage. Skin conditions: Hair follicles under the skin clogged up with sebum or oil can result in acne. As wet hair harbors bacteria, this can also impact the growth of bacteria in the pores.
Sleeping naked is an easy way to keep your skin temperature down without changing the room's temperature. It also helps you to stay cool overall. This improves your sleep quality and makes you feel less tired.
Pull your knees up slightly toward your chest. The pillow for your head should keep your spine straight. A rolled towel or small pillow under your waist may also help support your spine. Insert pillows into gaps between your body and the mattress.
Sleeping on the left side is the best sleeping position for hypertension because it relieves blood pressure on blood vessels that return blood to the heart.