Pain Academy students often come to me looking for advice on what the best positions are to sleep in.
They’re either looking for ways to improve their posture through sleeping a certain way or find it difficult to sleep with the chronic symptoms they’re experiencing and are looking for a way to find more comfort.
If you’re looking to find ways to improve your posture through sleeping a certain way, we haven’t found any evidence that shows that sleeping positions will improve your posture.
The one thing that is going to have the greatest impact on your posture and function is staying consistent with your movement sequences.
To improve function, not only do we need to realign the body, we need to be able to teach muscles how to move bones better. While you’re sleeping, there’s no way to do that since the entire body is at rest.
While there are very powerful resting positions in The Movement Program, it would be too much to attempt to sleep in those positions.
Students have reported trying that over the years, and it generally results in feeling terribly stiff and sore the next day. Why? Because they put their body in those positions for too long of duration for their currently imbalanced body to handle.
If you’re struggling to get to sleep at night due to chronic pains and imbalances, the most powerful things you can do are:
Be consistent with your movement sequences daily and/or
Complete your movement sequence right before bed so that you’re bringing a more relaxed and balanced body into bed.
As compensations relax and function restores while you work through The Movement Program, most often, better sleep follows. Whether that be more comfort at night or deeper, more restorative sleep. Either way, that’s a big win!
Some people find that certain pillows or wedges can help them sleep better in the meantime while their body improves.
That would take some trial and error to find something that’s most comfortable for you and your body in order for you to get the best rest possible while symptoms are at their highest.