BEST sleeping position to FIX Neck Hump, Hunchback, or Forward Head Posture | Dr. Jon Saunders

In this video, I'm going to show you how to get rid of a neck hump, forward head posture, or a hunched forward posture while you sleep. And as a bonus, I'm going to give you an easy stretch to help reduce the hump. My name is Dr. Jon Saunders. In this video, I'm going to show you the best and easiest way to passively get rid of that neck hump, correct the forward head posture, or that hunched forward posture while you sleep. And if you are enjoying the content I put out, please show some support by giving a thumbs up. And if you want, hit the subscribe button below so you can be informed of future videos. Here's your quick anatomy lesson. When we're looking at someone from the side, a normal, healthy human being, we expect to see a nice, smooth curve in the neck, followed by the opposite curve in the mid-back, we call that a kyphosis, and then another lordosis in the lower back. What tends to happen is our lifestyle is a hunched forward posture lifestyle. So what happens is these bones start to move and they get stuck. The head comes forward and a hyperkyphosis in the middle back. That is that hump that you see. That hump protrudes as our posture worsens. We've trained ourselves into that poor posture. We have faulty movement patterns. We have faulty postural patterns as we sit. We don't move enough. The muscles, the endurance muscles that allow us to hold our posture weaken over time. There are a few structures that we can impact directly when we sleep to help restore the proper posture and reduce that hump. I have another video that shows you an excellent exercise to work on the weaker endurance muscles to help get rid of that hump and hold your shoulders back, get your head back over your shoulders. Click that video up here. It's an excellent exercise to help rid that hump and correct your posture. However, in addition to that, you can improve your posture while you sleep. So we need to stretch the ligaments in the opposite direction to reduce the hump, pull the head back and reduce the kyphosis in our middle back. If you are concerned about what your posture looks like from the side, whether it be because you have a neck hump, your head's forward, or you're hunched forward, then you cannot ignore your sleeping position. And there is only one acceptable sleeping position to help restore or fix that hump while you sleep. The only acceptable way to sleep, if it is your goal to reduce that neck hump and that forward posture is on your back. Now, here's the thing. When you are on your back, there's a few things that you need to consider. You need to consider A, your mattress and B, the height of your pillow. If you truly desire to pull your head back over your shoulders, reduce this neck hump and restore the proper thoracic kyphosis, then we need to sleep on our backs. And we need to sleep on our backs very specifically. So let's for a moment, pretend this is your spine. Your thoracic kyphosis is in hyperflexion. There's compression on your discs. Your head is shot forward. You've developed a hump in the back of your neck from this altered posture. And now you're going to go to sleep. You're going to lie down at night and you're going to take your fluffiest pillow you can find. Maybe you'll use two pillows and you're going to put it underneath your head to support your posture. Well, here's the thing. You're supporting the bad posture. The only way to help reduce this while you sleep is if we can get the weight of your upper body and head and put it to use by helping pull your posture back into the ideal alignment. So how do we do that? Well, we take a thin pillow lengthwise. Most often people will take a thin pillow, which is the right thing to do if you're sleeping on your back, but they will still place it under their head. They're thinking their head, not their neck. Well, this still takes your head and neck and pushes it forward relative to your thorax while you're sleeping. So this does nothing but promote that bad posture and neck hump. So in order for you to try to help yourself at night passively when you're sleeping, we want to take this section of the spine and this section of the spine. We want to bring them in the proper alignment. So what we want to do is we want to take a thin pillow and we want to place it lengthwise. I know this sounds strange, but what you want, you want this edge to come to the place in your thoracic spine where it starts to curve forward. And you want to sleep so that your head and your body will use gravity to pull you out of that flexed posture. We are stuck in flexion because of everything we do on a day-to-day basis. We need to open up the rib cage, get some thoracic extension and our head back over our shoulders. This sleeping posture is the best way to do this. Now it will take some time to get used to, but I can tell you the more you do this, the more you get in the habit of sleeping with a lengthwise pillow. This is a bit low. It probably should be a bit higher. You will start to feel your posture opening up. In fact, some people will say that they stop snoring. They can breathe easier as their head comes back over their shoulders. So just be patient. When you wake up and you're in a different position, just throw the pillow back in the right position, set yourself up, take a few deep breaths and try to fall back asleep. For some of you that have significant forward head posture, this position won't be possible. You will still be above the pillow. So what you need to do is you need to transition maybe into from two pillows to one and a half pillows, to a thicker pillow, to a thinner pillow. And for some people, they will find benefit of using no pillow at all. It will allow you to get into the best position. It'll allow you to open your chest, get your head back over your shoulder and start to correct that posture. So it takes time. It takes effort. It takes diligence, but it will be worth it. One other thing you need to be aware of is that if your mattress is too soft, what will happen is when you're lying on your back, because your chest is generally heavier than your head, your chest will sink in. So if you can imagine, let's assume that this is a mattress, your thoracic spine will sink in again, creating that posture you're trying to fix. So you need to address your mattress. You need to have a fairly firm mattress to help support your proper posture. Next, I'm going to show you two simple thoracic extension stretches that you can do right before you go to bed, right before you get into this new position on your back to help reduce that neck hump and improve your posture while you sleep. One thing I will say, if you have any pain in your neck or mid back, please seek the help of a chiropractor. A chiropractor is an expert at addressing your spinal needs. And sometimes the joints in the base of your neck or between your shoulder blades, they're stuck. They aren't moving properly. And to get those joints moving correctly, a chiropractor can be life changing. So to improve your posture in your mid back and neck, one of the best things you can do is to stretch out your thoracic spine into extension. We're fixed in flexion. So we're going to open things up. So to do this, we're going to lean our elbows on a chair, a bench, something that's solid. So we want to put our elbows on the edge. We're going to take the back of our fingers, going to place it just basically where that hump would be on your neck. And what we're going to do is as we come down, so there's two things that we want to do. We want to drop, we want to drop our bottom into a squat. And we want to, if you see the opposite, the opposite is in flexion. So we want to come into extension. We want to extend our head up as we pull back on our hump and we want to sit down at the same time. So grab the back of our neck very gently, and we're going to slowly extend up as we sit down. And again, the opposite of this would be to flex. But again, we're going to be, we're going to sit down, we're going to extend our head up and we're going to open up our thoracic spine. Hold it for 10 seconds, three or four times. And you'll feel a nice stretch between your shoulder blades. You might have to move a few different ways into extension to get, you'll find the right spot. As you sit down, you pull and extend your head slightly. You'll feel a bit of attraction and stretch right between your shoulder blades and the back of your shoulders. If you find that one too difficult, or you're too restricted through your mid back, then the other easy one is the cow of the cat cow yoga pose or stretch. So for this one, we're going to basically lock our shoulders in place. And what we want to do is we want to extend our head up as we drive our belly down. So our knees are kind of above our hips. And so the opposite movement would be flexion. This is going to be extension. You want to kind of screw your hands into the floor, so to speak, and extend up and then come back to neutral, extend up, pull your shoulder blades together, kind of a modified cow and up and pull your shoulder blades together. Focus on that middle part of your back. And again, you should feel this one right between the shoulder blades, right below where that hump would be and into the back of your neck. These two stretches will help open things up. Use this in conjunction with sleeping on your back on a firm bed with a very thin pillow from about where your thoracic spine starts to move forward and get yourself into extension. I know if you do this consistently, you'll notice a change over time and you'll improve your posture and reduce that hump. I hope you found this video helpful and until next time, stay well.