Best Sleeping Positions To Avoid Back Pain

Highlights

• Back pain can spoil a good night’s sleep.
• There are numerous reasons for back pain and its good to know that certain simple remedies can reduce the severity.
• One among the simple hacks is to change your sleeping position.

Lower back pain hinders sleep and certain sleep positions are the reasons for it. Changing your sleep position or avoiding certain positions can reduce back pain. Among a list of reasons for lower back pain, sleeping positions, slouching over the computer screen and carrying heavy loads are some which we can change.

Back pain could be caused by everyday activities. We may not realize that some things are damaging our posture, including carrying a heavy handbag or sitting in the car for too long.

Tips to Avoid Low Back Pain During Sleep

• Always lie on your back and not your tummy: Sleeping in awkward positions could put immense strain on the neck or back, resulting in pain when waking up. If you are used to sleeping on your stomach, try to sleep without a pillow under your head and put one under your lower abdomen.
• Maintaining the curvature of the body reduces back pain: Back sleepers should put a pillow beneath their knees, to maintain the natural curvature of the lower back.
• Using a mattress that is more than 8 years old can cause low back pain. A mattress that’s more than eight years old will have deteriorated by 75 percent and may cause you to have bad posture while you sleep.
• Do Not Strain the Neck: If you sleep on your side, draw your legs up slightly toward your chest and place a pillow between your legs. Ensure that your neck is supported in the midline position.
• Another reason for bad back pain could be caused by slouching over a computer screen: Leaning forward by just 30 degrees to get closer to the screen puts three to four times more pressure on the back.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) recommends that physicians and patients should consider non-drug therapies such as superficial heat, massage, acupuncture, or spinal manipulation, to treat acute or subacute low back pain.

Causes of Back Pain

Backache is more prevalent between the age of 35 and 55. The most frequent cause of our back pain are:

• Heavy physical work
• Frequent bending, twisting, lifting: Back injury, heavy physical work, lifting, bending, twisting, or awkward positions might act a precursor to triggering back pain.
• Injury -A sudden fall, car crash, or sports injury can cause a sprain or strain. When a back injury occurs, muscles, ligaments, and tendons become over-stretched and swollen up, causing pain, tenderness, and stiffness.
• Repetitive work
• Static postures: Back pain most commonly results from poor posture. Sometimes it is due to poor body mechanics like standing for extended periods of time or sitting in an incorrect posture.  

Psychosocial risk factors for a backache include stress, distress, anxiety, depression, cognitive dysfunction, pain threshold, job dissatisfaction, and mental stress at work.

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Source-Medindia