Why you can't sleep on your back. The most useful position for sleeping
Sleep is health, physical and psychological. Many recommendations have been developed on how to sleep properly, but almost none that are practically useful on how to find time for proper sleep. night rest. However, you really need to get enough sleep. And it is possible. To do this, you need to learn to sleep correctly, no matter how long you manage to sleep. In particular, it won’t hurt to learn to sleep on your back in order to get a better and faster sleep. It's that simple! The only problem is that for most people, sleeping on their back is unusual and not very comfortable. You almost certainly also prefer to sleep on your side or even on your stomach, with your face in the pillow.
You can train yourself to sleep little by little or, conversely, learn to go without sleep for a long time. But in the end, all these practices artificially imposed on the body can backfire when you feel that your daily routine is completely disrupted, and fatigue and lack of sleep still accumulate. So, having gone through different variants sleep improvements, we came to the conclusion that there was nothing else to do but learn to sleep on our backs. It is simpler, safer and more effective than other methods effective sleep. And we’ll be happy to tell you how to get used to sleeping on your back, and most importantly, why sleep on your back.
What is the correct sleeping position? Sleeping on your back
The position in which a person sleeps is no less important than the time of sleep, its duration and the surrounding environment (light, sounds, air temperature, etc.). This is due to the sensitivity of the body to the position of all its external and internal parts. In one position or another, blood circulation, breathing, digestion and, accordingly, metabolic and regeneration processes are ensured in different ways. It is not at all necessary to literally lie down on your leg or arm; it is enough to fall asleep in an uncomfortable position so that by the morning you feel exhausted and not at all rested. Therefore, when going to bed, try to take a position based on medical recommendations: 
Unfortunately, not everything that is useful is also convenient. Great importance habit and health status play a role here. Sometimes back pain or bloating forces us to lie on our side or stomach, otherwise we simply won’t be able to sleep. But if you are healthy and want to maintain this health, then try to teach yourself to sleep on your back. It's not as difficult as it seems at first glance.
How to get used to sleeping on your back
Sleep on your back carries highest probability that you will relax properly (not only mentally, but your body will also relax) and rest during the night, even if you don’t sleep for long. Conduct an experiment: sleep on your back for a week and observe how you feel during the day: what is your mood, vigor, sensations? But first you have to train yourself to sleep on your back. Try doing this in one or more of these ways: 
Fearing the consequences of sleeping on your stomach is also a good way to encourage yourself to learn to sleep on your back. Moreover, this is not even a joke: just imagine how your attractiveness suffers every night when you bury your face in the pillow. Firstly, it provokes swelling on the face and bags under the eyes in the morning. Secondly, folds and creases form on the skin, which later (if you sleep this way often) turn into wrinkles. Thirdly, even sleeping on your side has a detrimental effect on your appearance, since wrinkles are folded asymmetrically (one nasolabial fold is deeper than the other, ptosis is more noticeable on one side, etc.). An abundance of folds and infantile swelling suits Shar Pei puppies, but not you. Isn't this a good reason to learn to sleep on your back?
Why learn to sleep on your back?
There are many ways to learn to sleep on your back, and some of them are quite outlandish. For example, among folk remedies You can come across a recommendation to sew a pocket on the front of a nightgown, put a small ball (like a tennis ball) in this pocket and go to bed in this design. But is the game worth the candle? That is, is it worth it to suffer so much just to learn to sleep on your back? On the one hand, sleep is rest, which means it is logical not to force your body, but to allow it to take a relaxed position. On the other hand, those who sleep primarily on their backs add the following components to their health:
- healthy spine;
- prevention of wrinkles and swelling;
- prevention of heartburn and belching;
- absence of muscle spasms;
- lack of clamps on nerve endings.
Any woman who decides to get pregnant must think about how to create favorable conditions for yourself and your future child. And, accordingly, women have many questions: “What can a expectant mother do and what can’t she do, is sleeping on her stomach harmful, is it good to play sports, what foods should she eat, and most importantly, why shouldn’t a pregnant woman sleep on her back?” Of course, people of the older generation can give advice to mothers, but every year research in the field of obstetrics is improving, and the information that our ancestors possessed is, to put it mildly, outdated. You can also ask friends who have recently become mothers, but this is far from a guarantee that the advice will be correct and useful. Thus, the question of why a pregnant woman should not sleep on her back remains open.
Pregnant woman sleeping on her stomach
It is clear that you cannot sleep on your stomach, as it puts a lot of stress on it. The weight of the pregnant woman's body falls on the placenta and, accordingly, the baby is under high pressure, which has an adverse effect on its development (especially for women who are in the second and third trimester of pregnancy). But why a pregnant woman should not sleep on her back is another question.
What can pregnant women do?
To begin with, it should be noted that sleeping on your back is not prohibited for the entire duration of pregnancy. As in the case of resting on the stomach, the ban applies only to women from the 2nd to 3rd trimester of pregnancy. The point is that in lumbar region located vena cava, which ensures the outflow of blood from the legs to the heart. It is known that blood circulation is very important function organism, without which it is impossible to live, so its violation can have a detrimental effect on health expectant mother, and also slow down the development of the fetus.
Consequences of sleeping on your back
In the first trimester, advice for pregnant women says, the fetus is very small and cannot affect the function of the vena cava. However, as the fetus develops and the abdomen grows, the load on the lumbar region while sleeping on your back, which interferes with the full functionality of the vena cava.
The uterus compresses the vena cava, as a result of which the supply of blood to the heart, which comes from the legs, slows down. This can cause a pregnant woman to acquire a disease such as varicose veins. In addition, a compressed vena cava will not allow the uterus to fully grow. Of course, this process will not stop completely, but it will significantly slow down its growth. This is the main reason why a pregnant woman should not sleep on her back. However, if you wake up at night on your back, you should not panic, you just need to turn on your side and calmly fall asleep again. The main thing is not to rest on your back all the time, and then this pose will not cause any harm to the body. And we must remember that strong and good dream For a pregnant woman, this is the key to the health of herself and her baby. Today you can find a lot of devices that will help you organize a comfortable rest: if you buy pillows for sleeping, you won’t need to roll over on your back.
Every night a person falls asleep and sleeps until the morning; about 25 years of his life are spent sleeping. It is simply necessary to sleep, otherwise your well-being, performance and, naturally, your mood will deteriorate. During sleep, breathing slows down, cardiac activity slows down, muscles relax and consciousness turns off.
It's very harmful not to sleep long time, there are many reasons for insomnia, for example, incorrect posture. No one can sleep all night in just one position; a person rolls over and changes body position from time to time. However most he spends the night in a certain favorite position. More often we're talking about about habit, it happens that health problems make adjustments to the situation.
It has been repeatedly noted that tired people, especially after a strong physical activity on the street, they toss and turn a little in their sleep, they sleep on their backs. If a person has insomnia, he will try almost all positions during the night, fall asleep on his stomach, and soon roll over to his left or right side.
Sleeping on your back
Is it harmful to sleep on your back? This position is considered to be the most favorable for sleep and rest; it is recommended for patients with scoliosis. When there are back injuries, sleeping in this position on a flat surface will be the only possible way relax.
People with hypertension are often advised to sleep on their back; at night there will be an even load on the heart. So it is useful to sleep on your back from a beauty point of view, on skin There will be no wrinkles on your neck and face. There are also contraindications - people suffering from apnea should not sleep on their backs.
The claim that this sleeping position is harmful is in most cases unfounded. Lying on your back for a long time is not recommended except for pregnant women in the last weeks of their term, and also for overweight people. Big belly puts intense pressure on the lower back and can cause deformation of the vertebrae.
Those who like to get a good night's sleep should take good care of their sleeping place, do not sleep on an air mattress or low-quality foam mattress. A surface that is too hard or soft cannot follow the natural curves of the spine:
- on a soft bed a person is tired and lethargic in the morning;
- on a hard bed he cannot relax normally.
The solution to the problem is a small orthopedic pillow for the head, a flexible cushion for the lumbar region. The rollers are sold ready-made, but you can make them yourself from a piece of flannel.
If during a night's rest your chin rests on your chest, this is bad; this often happens when the pillow is selected incorrectly. Not only my mood depends on how I sleep. If the pillow is too high, vertebral arteries become compressed and blood flow is disrupted. In the morning a man wakes up with bad mood, uneven complexion, headaches. The habit of sleeping on a high pillow even threatens an ischemic stroke.
For this reason, it is important to choose a good orthopedic pillow, but some people find it harmful to sleep on their back even with such a pillow.
Sleeping on your stomach and side
Men often rest on their stomachs; this position is the most comfortable for them. Sleeping on the stomach is chosen by people who have problems with their organs digestive tract. This method of rest has disadvantages, such as bending and compression of one of the vertebral arteries.
As a result, blood supply to the brain is disrupted and a nerve is pinched. As a result, the neck bothers me in the morning and there are shooting pains. Additionally, difficulty breathing occurs, since the lungs are not able to expand normally, and rib cage squeezed.
Surprisingly, sleeping on the stomach often becomes a prerequisite for sexual disorders in both men and women of any age. The reasons should be sought in the pressure of its own weight on internal organs person, circulatory disorders in the lower abdomen.
Sleeping on your stomach is harmful and, according to cosmetologists, this position causes:
- early appearance of wrinkles on the face;
- swelling after waking up.
Sleeping on your stomach is associated with nightmares, experts say
But the position on the side is called the fetal position, it is considered the most useful, and can even prolong life. Sleeping on the right side, according to yogis, has a cooling effect, and sleeping on the left has a warming effect.
People who suffer from problems with the spine should sleep on the right side, and the quality of the mattress plays a big role; a bad product will cause back pain. The fetal position will help relieve discomfort during attacks of heartburn and indigestion. Men who snore in their sleep are also recommended to choose this position.
At hypertension resting on the left side is harmful; this position of the body always puts a powerful strain on the heart muscle.
General factors can affect a person's sleeping posture: physical state, the presence of certain diseases. If your stomach hurts, a person:
- forced to sleep on his back;
- Cover the affected area with your hand.
At pain syndrome in the shoulder or hip, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to sleep on their side. For heart pain and pathologies of the respiratory system, patients sleep sitting and cover themselves with pillows.
Sleep disorders dictate their own rules, forcing you to toss and turn in bed for a long time, taking a sleeping position that is comfortable, but not always typical. If you eliminate discomfort with medicines, after some time the body returns to its favorite position and the person falls asleep.
Ambient temperature can also affect sleep, when a cold person automatically curls up into a ball and carefully wraps himself in a blanket.
The heat affects differently, the sleeper spreads his legs, opens up, places his arms on the sides to maximize heat transfer.
Choosing a mattress
Is it beneficial to sleep on foam rubber? IN last years this material is gradually losing its popularity, despite a number of advantages. First of all, a foam mattress allows air to pass through well, providing a ventilation effect, increasing service life, and minimizing moisture accumulation.
Another advantage of a foam bed is the wide variety of materials; it can be quite hard, soft or medium hard. Material increased elasticity has ideal supporting properties.
It should be noted regarding low cost mattresses, there is no need to process expensive natural raw materials. Availability does not mean poor quality product, but despite this, the mattress must be chosen carefully; the service life of the product directly depends on this.
There are clear rules for choosing a durable mattress; you need to pay attention to certain qualities:
- strength;
- presence of residual deformation;
- product thickness.
The foam rubber should be as strong as possible; if you press on it or stretch it in several directions, you should not hear a crack or other signs of deformation. A mattress made of good foam rubber will definitely return to its original shape. The answer to the question whether foam rubber is harmful will be negative.
To decide which product to choose, you need to take into account several parameters, including weight, age, health and, of course, personal preferences.
Doctors advise older people to buy soft mattresses and sleep on their backs. It will be much more beneficial for a growing body to sleep on rigid models, thus protecting against spinal deformities.
If available excess weight, the mattress must be elastic. If we are talking about a spring block, there should be as many springs as possible - about 260-1000 pieces. When two people sleep in a bed, their weight differs by 30 kilograms or more, it is necessary to select 2 separate mattresses. If in such a situation you sleep on a hard mattress, a person with less weight will constantly roll off, and there is no need to talk about the benefits of sleep.
An equally important parameter is the state of health; a patient with a bad back should ideally sleep on a mattress medium degree rigidity. In absolute health, when there are no problems with the back and joints, the model is chosen based on personal preferences. Why not then choose the most comfortable mattress?
Even with a lot of recommendations, sleeping in your favorite position will not bring satisfaction if you sleep on a bad mattress. Therefore, first of all, you need to take care of your sleeping place, the range of products today is simply amazing, manufacturers are trying to surprise customers.
The product must be chosen for yourself; it must be the most convenient and comfortable. In addition to the mattress, it doesn’t hurt to buy comfortable pillow, it’s good if it’s orthopedic.
If a man or woman likes to sleep on their back, this pillow is perfect.
Let's summarize
From all this we can conclude that sleeping on your back is more beneficial than harmful, since it helps eliminate pain in the neck and back. By raising your head a little higher than your body, your stomach drops just below your esophagus, reducing the likelihood of heartburn.
In addition, this position helps maintain good breast shape and does not provoke the development of wrinkles on the facial skin. Another factor why it is allowed to sleep on your back is the benefit for the spine; if you lie face up, it takes a natural position and there is no load on it.
Sleep is the body's way of restoring itself. In order to give the body a rest, a person needs to sleep for at least 6 hours. But you need to sleep not the way you want, but in a certain position. Some scientists believe that you should not sleep on your back. Naturally, the question arises: “ Why can't you sleep on your back?» Today we will tell you about this theory.
As it turns out, not everyone can sleep on their back. For example, people predisposed to sudden stop breathing, they may forget about this sleep position, because it is precisely by lying on his back that a person risks his life the most. Also, sleeping in this position is contraindicated for babies who often spit up. Experts say that in this position the baby may choke on his own saliva. It is safest for your baby to sleep on his side. Another piece of information to think about concerns pregnant women. They are also not recommended to sleep on their back.
The thing is that sleeping on your back can be very painful, because the enlarged uterus with the fetus creates a large load on the spine and this is what causes back pain and extreme fatigue. In the case when a woman is pregnant with twins or the baby’s weight is large, then when sleeping on her back, undesirable and even dangerous pressure to the vena cava. However, gynecologists do not give clear instructions regarding sleep positions, so you should rely only on your own feelings.
Now it has become clear to us why can't you sleep on your back However, do not forget that each organism is individual, so you should not torture yourself without reason uncomfortable positions. Sleep the way you want!
Sleep is very important natural physiological process for every person. Every day, people spend at least 6 hours of their lives sleeping. Sleep is a special state human body. This condition characterized by a reduced reaction of the human body to environment, a decrease in almost all activities that occur during a person’s waking period. During sleep, a person tosses and turns and sleeps on various parts of your body. Each person finds his own sleeping position, which becomes comfortable for him.
Some people prefer to sleep on their sides, others on their stomachs, and still others. Each of these methods has its pros and cons. They cannot be called unambiguously harmful to the human body, but under certain circumstances these methods can cause serious harmful effects for a person. Below are the key reasons and circumstances why people should not ride on their back, as it can cause great difficulties.
Key reasons why you shouldn't sleep on your back
So, every person might have this question “Why you shouldn’t sleep on your back.” The answer is that sleeping on your back carries a lot of unpleasant consequences for a person in certain situations, the key ones of which include the following:
Lack of proper rest for the body
Sleep is a means for the human body to rest, recharge with new strength after a hard day, and start a new day vigorously. However, sleeping on your back often prevents this natural process and does not allow a person to get the proper rest that he so needs. The reason for this is most often hidden in the fact that such sleep leads to increased stress and does not give human body relax completely, which leads to the inability to get the necessary rest.
Availability individual diseases or predispositions that may be exacerbated
Sleeping on your back in case of certain predispositions or diseases (especially diseases associated with respiratory system person) carries a great danger, as it can aggravate a person’s condition or serve as a trigger for the onset of acute phase diseases. For example, if you are predisposed to apnea, sleeping on your back can lead to a person experiencing prolonged cessation of breathing and this will not end in anything positive. If a person begins to snore when falling asleep on their back, this is a significant indicator that the person has a predisposition to sleep apnea. Therefore, such a person should be extremely careful when he falls asleep.
Snoring is often not evidence of any serious illness, because of which a person should run to medical specialists and seek a remedy. Many people in force genetic predisposition and it doesn't affect them in too negative a way. And if snoring does not foreshadow a disease, having a predisposition to it? It's simple. People who snore sleep have a much more difficult time, and the load on the heart and other organs increases. While in such a dream, a person does not receive the necessary level of rest and often feels extremely exhausted upon awakening. Much better situation will be observed if a person moves to another room to sleep. This will allow his body to relax and get the rest it needs.
Infancy
It is strictly not recommended to allow very young children to sleep on their backs. In this situation they may experience serious problems with the breath and it will lead to many negative consequences. In the worst case scenario, parents may not be able to keep track of such a moment and may simply suffocate. In order to prevent this situation, the child should be placed in other positions. For example, in the “sideways” position. This pose is very effective for both breathing and digestive system child.
Presence of pregnancy
Why shouldn't a woman sleep on her back during pregnancy? During this period, women become generally more vulnerable. Very often, when a woman sleeps on her back, the pressure on her spine increases, which in turn has an extremely negative effect on both her condition and the condition of the unborn child. This is especially noticeable in recent months pregnancy. In order to avoid unpleasant consequences and various complications, a woman should rely on her own feelings, as they will be able to tell her the correct solution for her, and choose the most comfortable position for herself.
Presence of diseases of the musculoskeletal system
Will sleeping on your back be harmful or beneficial if you have musculoskeletal diseases? musculoskeletal system, is determined directly from the specifics of the disease and the person’s feelings. In the case of some diseases, a person not only can, but also needs to sleep on his back, as this position can bring him a lot of relief. However, often with diseases of the spine, sleeping on the back leads to greater stress on the spine, discomfort and the occurrence of painful sensations, which can be both weak and strong, unbearably painful. In order to avoid all this, a person should choose a different sleeping position.
The key reasons to consider if you wish to sleep on your back have been discussed above. They are not the only ones and true for everyone, but in some cases they can be considered basic and affect many, so it is important to know and take them into account. Sleeping on your back may not cause you any discomfort, but if you have the problems described above, in order to feel better, you should abandon the idea of sleeping on your back and choose a different position for yourself that will allow you to get proper rest and not experience negative feelings.
An important part of a person's life
Life healthy person, sometimes depends on small but very significant details. For example, sleep, food, physical activity. But few people pay attention to them. About food and physical activity a lot has been said, but nothing about sleep. Why is so little written about sleep? Yes, because experiments are very difficult to carry out, since they involve not one part of the body, but several parts.
7 reasons you can't ignore
So, if you start with sleep, you might think that whatever position is comfortable is also useful. This, big mistake. In many countries, people sleep on their stomachs. Let's break this down. Firstly, everyone believes that sleeping on the stomach is very harmful; even from childhood we are told that this does not allow the lungs to fully expand. Unfortunately, only sick people with intestinal tract, but for healthy people this is a type of sleep, it’s the only way it’s shown. Also, during various illnesses, you should not sleep on your back, because they can cause respiratory arrest.
Secondly, there is a well-known name for a disease in which you should never fall asleep on your back. The name of this disease is Apnea. Touching on the first, we can say that in people with the possibility of a sudden stop in breathing, this is like death. Therefore, doctors make sure that people sleep on their stomach or side.
Thirdly, another type of people who are contraindicated to lie on their backs. Unfortunately, most countries suffer from this. This is snoring, it is also interconnected with breathing. During sleep, snoring sometimes prevents air from passing into the nasopharynx, throwing it, roughly speaking, back. A person receives less oxygen while resting, and thus wakes up in the morning, very tired, since the body could not rest peacefully. Someone always wonders how to get enough sleep, but does not think about how to sleep. It doesn't matter whether you went to bed at 8 pm or 10. The main thing is how you lie. Therefore, doctors most often registered visiting people with snoring. But they applied because they didn’t get much sleep, and nothing helped them.
Fourthly, this is an overload of the spine. Why can't you sleep on your back after training? Because there are many muscles in the spine, and they all work when you exercise, walk, or do anything. Therefore, many will notice that after a hard day of work, a person goes to rest and feels good, but as soon as he wakes up or gets up, his back begins to hurt even more. This is explained by the fact that by overloading the spine, you also add a couple of actions, that is, contractions, to already tired muscles. It seems logical, I lay down, everything relaxed, but it didn’t. Due to the fact that most people sleep on the wrong mattresses and pillows, they create a lot of contractions in our muscles. Therefore, when you lie down on the bed, you strain your back muscles, then you lick, they tense, and when you get up, you strain them even more. Therefore after physical training or heavy work, it is better to lie on your stomach. This way the spine will relax and allow all the muscles and bones to stretch out.
Fifthly, there are many inquiries about why pregnant women should not sleep on their backs. I think the answer is already clear. Pregnant women are like athletes. They carry almost 3 kilogram weights every day. This is not counting hormones and the well-being of the woman herself. The main thing is that in a state of constant stress, the body tries to contract the muscles more strongly. Because of this, little blood can flow to the fetus, making breathing difficult, and resulting harm to the unborn child. As you know, blood is not only important element in the development of the child, but also oxygen. Therefore, pregnant women rarely sleep on their stomachs, and if they do sleep, then from the fourth example, they wake up not only broken and tired, but also physically unhealthy due to blood pressure.
Sixthly, there are faiths that prohibit some holidays, sleep on your back. Even at that time, people knew that before the holiday and during the holiday itself, you need to sleep very well. So that your mood and well-being are the best memory of this day.
Seventhly, this is probably the most important thing, why you can’t sleep on your back. Because for a long time people were not interested in amenities. They only used what they had. The floor is just some kind of log, if not a folded sweatshirt. For the body it was the best bed in the world. Since the spine needs a straight, hard surface, and a small pillow, reminiscent of a folded sheet. Now people, in pursuit of convenience, and even money, are coming up with more and more pleasant, soft mattresses and pillows, but not useful ones. Because of this paradox in the development of industry, people increasingly began to turn to doctors. It all started with an ordinary mattress. When a person is very tired, physically, nothing helps him rest. No relaxation salon can replace a normal one good sleep. And when a person is physically tired, then mentally he cannot think, he simply does not have the strength. To prevent such fatigue, people were offered to take a tent and go sleep in the forest. Fresh air, a straight surface, gives the body what people are so successfully trying to get rid of, health.
Make the choice yourself, or they will make it for you
There are many reasons why you should not sleep on your back. Probably every person has thought about this. Because sleep is what a person needs. And it’s clear that we can save on food or some gym equipment, since it’s easy to replace them. But sleep cannot be replaced in any way. It simply has no analogues. This is a trait that is very important for development.
If a person does not get enough sleep, then his strength will simply disappear and he will have no desire to do anything. And then, in general, the person stops living. Not in the literal sense, the end of life, but the end of awareness. Then when you don't manage your life and interests. Therefore, if you consider this issue, take it completely seriously. For example, in India there is a law that minors cannot sleep on their back. There are also countries where sleeping on your back is a sin. There is no such thing in Russia, because there is the right to choose. But, roughly speaking, if you are not interested in your health or sleep, then the choice has already been made for you in favor of soft mattresses that spoil your health.