If neck pain is a problem, it might be the way you sleep. Do you ever go to bed feeling just fine, but wake up with a stiff neck or achy shoulders? In a 2016 study looking at more than 150 conditions, researchers found Americans spent more health care dollars on neck and lower back pain than anything else – some $130 billion. But according to LIFE KIT reporter Andee Taggle, much of that pain may be preventable by just paying closer attention to how you sleep and what you sleep with. What it comes down to is spinal alignment. I talked to Ellen Werther about this. She’s a nurse practitioner and behavioral sleep medicine specialist out of Virginia. She told me, just like when you stand or sit at a desk, to prevent pain, you need good posture when you sleep. You want your neck to be aligned with the upper back, your chin and neck aligned to the center of your shoulders, your shoulders in line with your hips, and then you want your head looking forward, not bent up and not bent down In case you couldn’t quite picture that, all she’s saying is you want to aim to sleep the way you stand – as in, a straight line from the top of your head to your tailbone. You wouldn’t go walking around all day with your head completely turned to one side, right? But plenty of people sleep that way, and spending hours in awkward angles at night is how you end up with daytime soreness and stiffness. Really, avoiding stomach sleeping is the biggest posture recommendation. The main issue is that it’s really hard to keep your head looking forward because it naturally bends up, or you turn it to the side. And when you turn it to the side, you’re getting some tension there with the rotating. So stomach sleeping is the least common among adults. It can open your airways, but it’s most associated with morning pain like neck and shoulder aches, as well as more fragmented sleep. So if you’re set on this posture, like I am, Werther suggests a very thin pillow or no pillow at all to limit the strain on your body.
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