When we think about good posture, we usually associate it with standing up straight or not slouching in our seat—but what about sleep posture?
As someone with great standing posture, I recently realized my sleep was a complete mess. I often wake up in the morning with sore limbs or a stiff neck due to the positions I contort my body into at night. Oftentimes, I’ll sleep with my arms crossed under my head or with one arm smashed under the weight of my body. Sometimes my circulation is so bad that I wake up with a dead arm full of pins and needles and have to shake it back to life.
My bad sleep posture wasn’t just affecting my sleep—it was also affecting my overall health. People can train themselves to have better standing posture, so why not apply that same logic to your sleep position?
To see if I could fix my sleep posture, I spoke to Dr. Andrea Matsumura, MD, a double board-certified internal medicine and sleep medicine physician, who shared some important insight into how our bodies work while we sleep, why we can find ourselves in uncomfortable positions, and how to correct your sleep position for a better night’s rest.
What is the best sleep position?
There isn’t a “right” way to sleep, but there is one position that’s best for rest and overall health. “You want to sleep on your back optimally,” says Dr. Matsumura. “You can sleep on your side, but sometimes people will need a pillow between their knees to sleep. But ideally, you want to sleep on your back.”
Sleeping on your back keeps your spine aligned, which is key to waking up without aches and pains. “There’s discussion around if you have a hard mattress you want a softer pillow so that the spine aligns. If you have a hard pillow, you want a softer mattress. Whatever it takes to align your spine.”
You may have heard that sleeping on your stomach is bad for you, but Dr. Matsumura says it really depends on the mattress and pillow you use. “There is some data that shows that if you’re sleeping on your stomach, it can put strain on your spine. But that’s not always true if you have a really soft pillow and your spine is aligned,” she says. “If you are sleeping on your stomach and you’re having back pain, okay, that’s a red flag to say, don’t sleep on your stomach, sleep on your back.”
What are signs that my sleep position is bad for me?
Aches like back pain and neck strain indicate you’re not sleeping in the right position. Contorted positions can lead to numbness. “Positions where our hands might be curled in or you’re sleeping on a limb, you might wake up and it’s numb because you’re compressing that,” says Dr. Matsumura. There’s no need for panic or concern though: “That doesn’t mean you’re going to cause any damage. It just means that the nerve is compressed,” she says. “And so then you have to wake up and move it around and wake that nerve up again. And sometimes people can have numbness and tingling for a while, but that doesn’t mean that you’re causing yourself nerve damage.”
How to fix your sleep posture
Start with self-talk
According to Dr. Matsumura, fixing your sleep posture is mental just as much as it is physical. “You can train yourself with self-talk,” she says. “It’s like that whole manifestation idea. Start out on your back in bed and say, I’m going to sleep on my back.”
Making a mental note to correct your sleep posture can translate to your body. “I find myself actually waking up with my arms over my head and then it hurts. And so then I wake up and say, Oh, why am I doing that?” says Dr. Matsumura. “And I tell myself, Okay, make sure that you keep your arms down and to try to help yourself. That subconscious messaging helps.”
Place pillows on both sides
To keep yourself from rolling over, try placing a pillow on both sides of your body. This will help keep you on your back at night. Dr. Matsumura also recommends putting a pillow under your knees. “It helps you maintain that same posture throughout sleep,” she says. But don’t be discouraged if you ultimately end up moving around at night. Movement in your sleep is completely natural and normal.
“The fact of the matter is that we all move around all night long. In a typical night, most people are going to move around and switch positions at least 20 times. Very few people stay in one position,” she says. “So you might start out on your back, but you might turn a little bit this way, you might turn a little bit that way. I see people in sleep studies and very few people stay in one position the whole night.”
Readjust your position
On that note, if you wake up and find that you’ve moved off your back, simply readjust your position. “Put the pillows back and return to your back position,” Dr. Matsumura says. “It’s kind of the same thing if you have pajamas on and you wake up and they’re all pushed up or twisted, you just fix them.” This will not only correct your posture but it will help train you to maintain the position through the night.
Find the right mattress and pillows
Mattresses and pillows are all about personal preference, but according to Dr. Matsumura, a firmer mattress is better for spinal alignment. “We don’t need super firm, but we don’t need too soft,” she says. “Too soft tends to make the spine not be in a neutrally aligned position. Some people like a firmer pillow, some people like a softer pillow. There’s no perfect pillow and there’s no perfect mattress brand. That’s why there's literally hundreds, if not thousands, of brands out there.”
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Try a weighted blanket
If you are soothed to sleep by pressure, there’s actually a scientific reason. “It’s called deep pressure stimulation that helps you relax,” Dr. Matsumura says. “We’re just calming the nervous system where that pressure sends that signal to the body to fire off what we call the parasympathetic system, which is our relaxation system. And it helps stimulate that relaxation mode. It releases all those relaxation hormones in the body. It releases oxytocin, serotonin, all these feel-good hormones.” Think of swaddling a baby or crating a dogs: “It’s the same concept,” she says. “We like that environment.”
A weighted blanket can help achieve that same stimulation, but in a more comfortable way (as opposed to smashing your arms or hands). “Weighted blankets are good, and there’s different weights. There’s a calculation you can measure online of how much pressure you want,” Dr. Matsumura adds. “The pressure really helps to calm the nervous system, and so that can add to relaxation. That’s actually why I like wearing an eye mask; not just because it blocks out the light, but it’s that mild pressure that actually helps me relax. It kind of disconnects me.”
My experience correcting my sleep posture
Following Dr. Matsumura’s advice, I went to bed telling myself a new mantra: “I will try to sleep on my back.” I even went so far as to acknowledge the errors of my current sleeping position: “I will keep my arms straight. I will not curl them in.”
I flanked my body with two pillows and waited for sleep to come. I have to admit, it took a while for me to drift off, since the position felt unnatural to me. As a longtime side and stomach sleeper, I rarely if ever fell asleep on my back. The first couple of days I definitely moved around, but to my amazement, the self-talk worked: Even in my half-awake half-asleep state, I mostly remembered to readjust my sleep position and return to my back. I would even grab the pillows, making sure they were back in position.
After almost a month of correcting my sleep posture, I can say that it’s definitely improved my sleep and health overall. I feel a lot more well rested, and haven’t woken up with a prickly arm since. My limbs hurt a lot less and I’m not achy in the morning. Of course, I still drift off to my side or stomach sometimes, but a lot less often. And if I do, it’s become a habit to correct my position.
Next I’ll try a weighted blanket to help keep my posture in check—I’m hoping the added weight will minimize my movement throughout the night. But even if you try these small tweaks, you’ll see a world of difference.