A healthy lifestyle involves enough hours of sleep to recover your energy for the next day. The National Sleep Foundation recommends between 6 and 8 hours of relaxing night sleep for adults. However, the sleeping time is not the only sleep-related factor that can influence your health. Specialists in the new Somnology field warn that sleeping position can affect the health.
The back pain is the main signal for an unhealthy sleep position, and it may even increase with time. To this, neck pain and even stomach pain may occur with time, warns the specialists in Somnology.
Unhealthy sleep positions
Sleeping on your stomach is one of the positions that is not recommended by specialists. The reason is that this position doesn’t respect the line of the spine, plus that it exerts more pressure on the wrists and muscles. Because of this position, we can experience pain, but also dizziness.
Fetal position is another sleep position that’s not recommended by specialists. Such a posture in sleep can lead, with time, to neck and back pains. This position should be avoided because it does not follow the main recommendation of the experts, namely that, during sleep, the neck should be aligned with the rest of the body.
Healthy sleep positions
Sleeping on the back, with arms and legs slightly apart, may prevent back pain, but also may reduce wrinkles or acne, according to the Somnology specialists. This position is also recommended for people suffering from gastro-oesophageal reflux. However, it has one inconvenient, namely that it can increase snoring in people suffering from sleep apnea.
Sleeping on a side can prevent back pain and is the recommended sleeping position for pregnant women or for the people who suffer from snoring. Recent studies reveal that it is ideal to sleep on the left side because this position facilitates the functioning of internal organs and a normal blood circulation.
