We don’t often think about our spines when we’re lying in bed. But our sleep posture can help determine whether or not we experience back pain. So when you turn in for the night, remember these tips from physical therapist Marleen Caldwell, PT, MS, Cred MDT: Choose a well-made innerspring or foam mattress, or add a foam mattress topper to your innerspring mattress for additional support. You can also alter your sleep position or use pillows to keep your spine neutral. The best position for sleeping is on your back. The worst position for sleeping is on your stomach due to the unnatural position of your neck. Sleeping on your back evenly distributes weight across the widest surface of your body, minimizing pressure points and ensuring proper alignment of your internal organs. RELATED: What Happens to Your Body When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep Some evidence suggests that habitually sleeping on one side on an ill-fitting mattress may contribute to muscle imbalance, pain, and in some cases, scoliosis.
Always sleeping on the same side suspends the middle of your body between your hips and shoulders, the broadest parts of the trunk. Place a pillow between your knees as shown below to keep hips, pelvis and spine aligned. Whichever sleep position you choose, position your pillow beneath your head and neck, and not your shoulders. If you sleep on your back, make sure the pillow fills the space between your neck and the mattress to maintain your head in neutral position, as illustrated below. If you sleep on your side, use a thicker pillow, also shown below. If your hips are wider than your waist, a softer mattress can accommodate the width of your pelvis and allow your spine to remain neutral, as shown below. If your hips and waist are in a relatively straight line, a more rigid surface offers better support. RELATED: 4 Simple Stretches to Help Alleviate Back Pain (Video)How Can Recovery & Comfort Pillows Benefit Me In My Daily Life Or Healing Journey? The pillows featured in the Make Me Heal Store are designed to help reduce post-operative symptoms following surgery or injury including swelling, pressure, muscle tension and pain in various parts of the body.
As recovery often requires resting in the same position for long, continuous periods, these recovery comfort pillows can help reduce body aches and enable a patient to enjoy pain-free rest. Additionally, many of these pillows are a great addition to one’s daily life as they can help enhance comfort while resting and can be used for breathing comfort, improving blood circulation, reducing pressure and muscle tension, and for treating medical conditions such as acid reflux disease and hernia. As you walk through the Pillows department of the Store, you will notice that there are several major types of pillows to consider for your healing journey or daily living comfort. Elevation Wedges & Pillows are specially designed with an incline to provide proper elevation and to keep your affected swollen areas (facial, upper, mid, or lower body areas) comfortably elevated in a 45 degree angle that helps reduce swelling and enables optimal blood circulation to all the vital healing areas.
Depending on the area(s) that is swollen, you may need to keep such area(s) elevated. For patients with swelling in the upper body region, we offer wedges that are specifically designed to keep the head, arm, back, chest, and abdominal areas comfortably elevated. Similarly, patients having lower body procedures can use knee and leg wedges that keep swollen areas the legs, thighs, calves, and feet area comfortably elevated. Beyond using wedges during healing from a surgery or injury, these products can be used in everyday life to elevate the head for breathing comfort, pressure and muscle tension relief, and as a treatment for medical conditions such as acid reflux/indigestion and hietal hernia. Many patients find bed wedges to be a superior and more comfortable elevation solution compared to putting oneself above pillows on a bed. The advantages of wedges compared to pillows are that they are sturdy, you do not have to worry about slipping off as you would with pillows, you have far less tension and stress on your body, and you do not have to periodically rearrange the wedge as you would with pillows that shift around and fall.
The neck, ear, knee and leg pillows are specifically designed to help you enjoy more comfort while resting or sleeping by promoting better blood circulation and reducing muscle tension and discomfort when resting. For patients recovering from a surgery or injury, these neck and knee pillows can maximize comfort and help achieve pain-free rest during recovery. Due to the need to rest and sleep (often in an elevated position) for long, continuous periods during recovery, having to remain in the same position for long periods of time causes patients to experience all kinds of muscle tension and aches in areas such as the neck, shoulders, back, arms, buttocks, knees, and legs. This leads to patients having difficulties resting and sleeping properly during the recovery and is a cause for frustration. For this reason, products such as the U-Shaped pillow, leg separator, knee and leg wedge and lifts can maximize your comfort during the healing journey. For patients who have had surgical incisions done in the ears area (due to a face lift or neck lift), the ear pillow enables them to sleep on their side without experiencing discomfort in the healing ear.
Many of the pillows in the store are made of memory foam, which provides the highest standard of comfort during recovery from a cosmetic procedure. For your convenience, we have created a Memory Foam Pillows section. Each memory foam pillow that is featured in our Store is made of a high quality, durable memory foam material that conforms to the body’s shape. The memory foam layer of the pillow responds to the body's temperature through the transfer of body heat, resulting in a pillow surface that is shaped like your body. You can find pillows in all the above categories that are made of memory foam, from memory foam bed pillow wedges of various sizes, memory foam wedges with a built-in neck roll, memory foam head and neck pillow wedges, memory foam leg pillow wedges, and other types of memory foam pillow products. Back and Lumbar Pillows & Cushions provide lower back support and reduce the strain on the back. For patients needing to rest for prolonged periods of time, As non-stop resting and sleeping is required during the initial phase of recovery from different cosmetic procedures, having to remain in such a position for long periods causes patients to experience all kinds of muscle tension and aches and discomfort in the back.
For this reason, a back/lumbar pillow can be a real lifesaver by enabling you to have the pain-free rest that is crucial for healing. Enhance Comfort, Pressure/Muscle Tension Relief See Full Product Line For most people, it is very difficult to maintain a correct posture while sitting in an office chair and working for long hours at a desk or in front of a computer. Not knowing what a good posture should be and sitting all day with a back and neck wrongly positioned can definitely cause back, head and neck pain or worsen an existing problem. A lumbar back support helps promote good posture by simply filling in the gap between the lumbar spine and the seat, supporting the natural curve of the lower back. Office lumbar support seats and chairs encourage maximum relaxation of the back muscles by holding and supporting the natural curves of the lumbar vertebrae and allow a correct sitting posture to relieve back, neck and shoulder pain. Car pillows, chairs, lumbar support and seat wedges