Understanding Sleeping Positions for Better Rest and Health

The quality of your sleep determines just how well your body metabolizes. When you get enough sleep at night, you wake up in the morning feeling refreshed and ready for new challenges. That fresh feeling comes from your body successfully regenerating, creating new cells, and building up enough energy for the day.

There are a lot of factors that determine the quality of your sleep, but the most prominent one is your sleeping position. If you are serious about improving the way you sleep at night, understanding sleeping positions for better rest and health is something you need to do. The next several tips and tricks will help you get started right away.

Sleeping on Your Belly

A lot of people sleep on their belly. Truthfully, this is not the best sleeping position to maintain. Sleeping on your belly puts a lot of stress on your back and neck, plus it may trigger discomforts that cause you to wake up several times during the evening.

Changing your sleeping habits, however, is not something that can be done overnight. What you can do instead is improve the quality of your sleep by taking active steps according to your habit of sleeping on your belly.

The first thing you can do is provide support for your neck. Get a soft and comfortable pillow or use no pillow at all so that your back and neck remain in a comfortable position. A firm pillow will cause the neck to tilt upward in an uncomfortable way.

You can also switch to the freefall position – with your arms around a pillow and your head facing one side – so that your body can maintain a comfortable position for longer. This will improve the quality of your sleep significantly.

Sleeping on Your Back

A lot of people consider sleeping on their backs as the best way to go, but that is not always the case. If you have back problems or if you suffer from issues such as sleep apnea, sleeping on your back actually makes these issues worse.

At the same time, you also put your back in a slight curve, which could get uncomfortable over time. What you want is a mattress that can fully support you while you sleep on your back, but not one that is too firm that you end up feeling uncomfortable anyway.

There are several positions that you can adopt when sleeping on your back. The Starfish – with your hands on your side in a comfortable and natural way – gives you the most comfort and lets you sleep better for longer.

Sleeping on Your Side

The best sleeping position is on your side, but only if you can maintain a suitable position for the duration of your sleep. Sleeping on your side is not without its challenges, especially when your mattress is too soft.

Sleeping in a fetal position, with your knees bent, is not only the most comfortable but also the healthiest. You are distributing the stress across a bigger surface of the body, and the fetal position lets you go into a deeper sleep faster.

Once again, a good mattress that supports the natural position of your body is needed. Investing in a good mattress lets you improve the quality of your sleep by a substantial margin. There are several factors to consider when choosing a mattress and Simply Rest covers the details perfectly.

ThereThere are specific positions that are helpful for when you are dealing with specific issues like snoring and even mattresses designed to help back pain, but we are going to save them for another article. In the meantime, use the tips and tricks we covered in this article to improve your sleeping position and the quality of your sleep.