How you sleep is important!

Sleeping in an awkward, strained position is one of the most detrimental things that you can do for your spinal health. Many people enter my office with chronic neck, shoulder, lower back, or hip issues that can be traced back to the way they sleep. Sleeping in poor positions can also prevent us from achieving the optimal corrections.The best sleeping position for your body, is lying on you back with a pillow under your knees. Adding the pillow under your knees will help light sleepers stay in that same position.If you absolutely can NOT sleep on your back, the second-best position is to sleep on your side with a pillow in-between your knees. Find a pillow that will allow your legs to stay parallel, which will prevent excessive twisting of your hips and lower spine during the night.Another common mistake that people make in regards to sleeping, is by having the wrong pillow. Our neck has a built in curve that is very important to our overall health. When we sleep with large or multiple pillows, it actually changes the angle of this curve; and can create significant problems down the road.The best neck support is something called a cervical pillow, which is designed to specifically support this curve. If you can’t sleep on a cervical pillow, the next best thing is to sleep without a pillow at all. This will help to ensure that our head stays in line directly over our shoulders, as it was designed to do. How many people do you see that have their heads several inches in front of their shoulders?Changing the way you sleep can be an extremely difficult habit to break. Therefore, it is very wise to make sure that your children are sleeping in the correct position at a young age.