The Best Sleeping Position for Side Sleepers!

Yeah? Oh, looking for best positions for a side sleeper? Well, this is the video for you. Step one, get your dog out of the bed. All right, let's go, Bear. Yeah, go. So the important thing when you're sleeping is to get your spine in a neutral position. So it doesn't really matter if you're on your side, on your back, or on your stomach. You want to keep that neutral spine position so it's not getting pressure in areas and pushing on the disc and pushing on the nerves and things like that. So before we get started, go grab a bunch of pillows. We're going to make a pillow for it and a rolled up towel as well. So you can see here I have a bolster. Sometimes I think those are better for like between your legs because they're a little bit firmer and they're not going to kind of bottom out while you're sleeping. But you can use pillows as well but you will need some pillows or maybe one of those long body pillows that help as well. So if you don't have those, go ahead and hit the pause button and go collect your pillows and a rolled up towel or something like that. So when you're side sleeping, the things that you want to make sure you're protecting are your neck, your shoulders, your hips, and your knees. So when you're kind of getting everything ready, and sometimes it is hard figuring it out, making sure it's in the most comfortable spot, but once you get it down, then you won't have to work on it as much. You'll know where to put it and it'll be easy going to bed. So what I like the rolled up towel for, and it doesn't have to be anything super thick, but what the rolled up towel is going to be for is the curve here on your side when you're laying on your side. Because if that curve kind of bottoms out, then your hips are not going to be in a neutral position and that's going to cause some hip pain. So that can kind of sit right there and you can move that around a little bit as well. Make sure you have a pillow that's not too high and not too flat. What you want to be able to do is when you're lying down, you want your neck and head to be in that neutral position. The pillow comes down to touch the shoulder to help protect that curve in your neck. And then it should be high enough where you're not getting a lot of pressure on your shoulder, but not so high where you're pushing your neck up this way. A lot of people ask about not sleeping with a pillow at all. I'm not a huge fan of that because then often you'll end up going the other way. But if you can put something like another rolled up towel in the curve to protect the curve of your spine, I'm not completely saying that that's not a good idea. But I always think just having a little bit of a pillow, even if it's a super flat pillow, is going to be better because it's going to help keep that neck in that neutral position. So then when I go to lie down, the key here is finding that spot first kind of in that little curve here. So see it's not a lot, but it's just enough to kind of take up that space. So then my hips aren't rolling downwards. So a lot of times when you're lying like this, you can see if my knees are going in a downward position, that's putting a lot of stress on my hips right here. Now you can sometimes get things you'll see online that you just have a like a pillow in between your knee here. But those are fine. But I also think that you should also have your feet up as well. Because if you're just like this, then you're going in the opposite position. So you're not in a neutral position anymore. But if you have your something in between your feet as well, then you're in that neutral position. So both knees come up. I'm one of those people who I like to sleep with one leg out and one leg up. But you really want to try and get both knees up together because you don't want your hips kind of rotated all the way through the night. So that's why I kind of like a bolster or a little bit longer pillow because see then it supports my feet as well as my knees. Because if I was just having something here, see then I'm getting that angle again. I'm still getting some pressure at the knees and the hip. But if it's here where it's supporting both my feet and my knees, that's actually really really comfortable. I feel very comfortable in this position. I feel supported here. I don't feel pressure on my hips. I have that little roll to kind of keep everything in that nice neutral position. Now a lot of times when people sleep, they'll have shoulder pain. And they think it's because they're sleeping on their side. Well sometimes maybe it depends on your bed and how much pressure you're getting. But a lot of times it's the same thing with the shoulder on top. If you're sleeping like this, you're putting that shoulder in an impinged position. So you know it's not necessarily worrying about what's what's on the bottom part, but what's on the top part. Because I'm kind of impinging that shoulder. So if I have issues with my shoulder and I'm sleeping like this, then I'm really impinging it. So that comes into having another pillow or like I said a full body pillow would work as well. And then you're just going to have something where you're resting your arm on it like this. So see that puts that shoulder in that more neutral or open position where I'm not impinging that shoulder. Not putting pressure on the area where it's causing a lot of pain. I like putting my hand under my pillow, the bottom one. Sometimes I know people say that's not great, but just trying to find that comfortable position. If you want to kind of hug the pillow, that would help as well. But you really want to get this in a neutral position, this in neutral position, and down there in neutral position. As well as your head and neck. So sometimes you might not know if you are or not. So with technology today, you can take a picture, have your partner take a picture, have your kids take a picture, get in that position, and then kind of adjust as necessary. But you'll be able to feel if you're not comfortable right now with all this. And if I needed to fold up the pillow or add another pillow to get it a little bit more in a neutral position, I could. But this is very very comfortable for me. And I know people talk about then they turn and you know it's hard because you have the pillows in between. But once you get in that comfortable position, you'll be able to figure it out. And if you're comfortable, you might not want to have to toss and turn quite as much. So a lot of people also ask, what side am I supposed to sleep on? And that question has really a lot of answers. Sometimes you want to sleep on a specific side. If you have acid reflux, you want to sleep on a specific side. If you have heart issues. And then you also, some people want to sleep on a specific side for religious reasons. So there's a lot of different reasons. I'm not going to go into all of those and which sides. You can check those out for yourself if you have specific issues. But mainly, just like I tell people, whichever side is more comfortable for you. I have found I have some issues on my left hip. And surprisingly, if I sleep on my left side, it's more comfortable sleeping on it versus it being on top. Because if you get out of position a little bit, then you get more pressure on the top side. But again, it's more what's comfortable for you. And if you have some health issues, what side would be better for you for those health issues or those religious reasons for sleeping on a specific. So there you have it. Those were the best positions for a side sleeper. If you'd like to help support my channel, click on the link up there. And don't forget to subscribe. Where Mr. Bear? Yeah, down there. And remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.