Sleeping positions tell us how our internal and external body areas react to different pressures on a mattress. If you sleep on your stomach on a hard mattress, it will pressure your gut and spine. But when you already have lower back pain, it is an indicator of low muscle and spine strength and density. In other words, either because of strain or lack of exercise, a vast majority of people today have lower back pain. This issue is especially prominent in office-going or people with a sedentary lifestyle. Additionally, age and medical conditions can be a factor too, where people over 30 are more likely to have lower back pain because of the factors mentioned above. However, not all is lost as your body repairs itself in sleep.
Fixing your lifestyle, sleeping position, and mattress can significantly prevent and improve lower back pain. For lower back pain, medium-firm mattresses like latex, Orthobond series, and orthopedic mattresses are best. However, the best course to help with immediate lower back pain is to change your sleeping orientation. In line with your mattress type, sleeping positions can significantly impact your overall spine health, sleep quality, and lower back pain. Here are some sleeping positions to try to relieve lower back pain and how you can prevent lower back pain:
1. Sleeping on the side with knee support: Sleeping on the side is one of the best positions for your spine. As long as your mattress helps spinal alignment instead of sinking in excessively, you don’t have to worry. Side and back sleeping positions are best for your spine and back in general, as long as the mattress can comfort and support the spine in its natural S-position. If you suffer from back pain as an expecting mother or also face lower back pain in addition to hip pain, knee support can do wonders.
While sleeping on the side can help with inclining your spine, using support in the form of a body pillow or medium-firm pillows can help relieve the lower back area. Moreover, using a body pillow or any form of support for your knees can also help relax your pelvic area and leave room for immense relaxation from pain. You can use a body pillow for cuddling and general comfort for support and cushioning for your stomach and chest area. Such a sleeping experience can help you comfort your entire body, where a medium-firm mattress can contour and support your spine into a vertical position. Over time, any strain would go away as the knee and body support helps keep away strain on the lower back and pelvic region.
2. Fetal Position: The fetal position is one where you sleep on your side with legs curled up. The similarity between the fetal position and sleeping on the side with knee support is how these orientations relax your lower back. Although in the fetal position or side position with knee supports to cause the opposite, sleeping this way relaxes your lower back.
By relaxing and opening up the lower back, the fetal position helps make your medically diagnosed and lifestyle pains go away. As long as your mattress can support your spine in the side sleeping position, a fetal position is one of the best course of action against lower back pain. This position is also useful in the case of a slipped disc, as it tends to pull the spine and provide relief from the pain between the rubbing tissues. This lowered tension is the best scenario for someone suffering from this issue.
3. Sleeping on the back with calves and knee support: The back-sleeping position helps with spine alignment and is the best way to sleep for support. In this sleep orientation, you can be sure that your spine is assuming its natural S shape. However, in the case of lower back pain, it is usually because of either of two factors:
a. Less activity: A sedentary lifestyle can lead to lower back pain because of low hours sitting in insufficient exercise. Eventually, the muscles and the cartilage between the lower spine can become weak and unable to perform optimally in the long-term. This results in chronic pain that is hard to get rid of unless you give proper care with a healthy balance of exercise and mattress care.
Sleeping on the back can give you better spine and back health as it allows more room for the different parts to have proper cushioning and support. In case you have pains because of a sedentary lifestyle, a medium-firm or high-density cushioning mattress can greatly help such an issue. Moreover, if you use a pillow beneath your calves and knees, the raised legs will help relieve this pressure by actively inclining the spine.
b. Straining from physical activity or standing work hours: Standing long hours without much movement or a healthy balance of exercise and rest can lead to severe spinal pains. In such a case, you need a firmer mattress to help your lower back to stay in shape with proper support. Raising your legs with the help of a collection of pillows or one large pillow can help relieve this pain by making the lower back more relaxed. A firm or extra firm mattress (orthopedic is best) would help relieve such pain in the long and short term.
4. Sleeping with an inclined back: Following the principle of reducing stress with a pillow, an inclined sleeping position has similar benefits. Using a wedged sleeping pillow directly under your pelvic area can help relieve pressure where the upper vertebrae can lead to additional stress on the lower spine. This method is a good option for people with severe lower back pain and can help with immediate back pain relief. However, this isn’t the most suitable, comfortable, or even long-term option for many people.
5. Sleeping on the stomach with pelvic support: A stomach sleeping position helps take away most of the pain if you have issues sleeping on the back. Sometimes, sleeping on the back with a lower back area paining can lead to further discomfort. In this scenario, if you’re a stomach sleeper, it can exert extra pressure on the lower back. Since all the abdominal organs and areas are pushed upwards, it adds unnecessary pressure on the lower back. In case you have a medium-firm mattress, it can help cushion your abdominal and pelvic area to some extent.
However, if you prefer sleeping on the stomach, using a pillow beneath your pelvic area can help relieve pressure from a paining lower back. To take care of your spine, you also need to look at the entire section from bottom to top. While this method can help relieve pain from the lower back, your upper spine starts inclining in the stomach position. To help this, you should avoid taking a pillow or take a slim pillow that doesn’t cause your head to lift up in this position.
These are some ways you can try out to prevent or get some instant relief from back pain. However, the best way to take care of your lower back is to use a proper supportive mattress. Most people only take care of their health after a signal like lower back pain shows up out of sedentary use or overexertion. With the help of a suitable mattress, and some time for exercise every day, issues like lower back pain can become a thing of the past. Moreover, taking care of lower back pain might always not be a problem that a mattress or sleeping orientations can solve. In case of severe issues like a slipped disc, muscle injury, or back injury due to a fall, you should visit your physician as fast as possible.
Sleeping tools and recommendations to reduce lower back pain:
While sleeping orientations can help you get some relief in the short term, it depends on the mattress and your lifestyle for long-term relief. Choosing an orthopedic mattress or cushioning mattress with adequate support is essential when you have lower back pain. In case of back pain, you should always choose mattresses with more density and firmness at the surface so that your spine doesn’t sink in unnaturally. Here are some tips and tools to adopt in your sleeping and waking routine for better lower back health:
1. Exercise: In the current global pandemic scenario or otherwise, work has taken more precedence over exercise in our daily lives. However, without exercise, you expose yourself to immunity issues, deteriorating muscles, and multiple health risks. When you sit for long hours at a desk in a bad posture without movement, stretching, and daily exercise, you become more prone to back problems.
That is why daily exercise in variety like walking, yoga, stretching, and anything that helps you relax and put more work into your spine should keep back problems away. If you’re working out daily, exercise helps keep your back pains away and helps keep obesity and overweight issues away, which causes further harm to your spine and knees.
2. Orthopedic mattresses: While you work on your health with a doctor or improving your lifestyle in general, an orthopedic mattress is perfect for lower back problems. Ideally, you should take a prescription from your physician or doctor for the kind of orthopedic mattress that you should be using in case of severe diagnoses of lower back pain. However, in most cases, proper care and support in line with proper sleeping orientations can help keep the pain away. Orthopedic mattresses have a medium-firm to extra-firm surface experience that supports your lower back in the back-sleeping position and help keep the spine vertical in the side sleeping position.
3. Proper use of supportive pillows: As mentioned above, knee support or pelvic support helps a lot if you’re looking to relieve pain from your lower back. The mechanism is simple- the lesser the weight and inclination to bend, the better the relief would be for your lower spine. In other words, pillows with adequate support and cushioning (both body and head pillows) can keep your spine in good shape. For example, sleeping on a high-density memory foam pillow or gel-memory foam pillow with a slim form factor helps support your head in just the right inclination in the back-sleeping orientation. If you are using fluffy pillows with less support and more cushioning for your head, it puts your shoulders and head at risk. Using knee support or pelvic support pillows should also be ideally high-density memory foam pillows to support but not unnaturally incline or raise in different sleeping positions.
Conclusion:
Lower back pain is an issue that plagues most of us, just like obesity and mental stress, are common issues. Lower back pain is not a ‘part of aging’ and can be kept away for as long as possible with a balanced lifestyle. Keeping a check on your BMI and a general sense of spine health can keep lower back and upper back pains away. Strength training, yoga, or general walking every day keep these issues checked as long as possible as per your age. Sleeping orientations help provide relief when you feel your back giving you excessive pain and can also benefit in the long term. But that is helpful only as long as you stick to a healthy lifestyle and sleep environment.
For the best lower back support, you should go for orthopedic mattresses that support and feel comfortable enough to sleep on the side. For people with issues like sciatica, scoliosis, or other severe back pains, you should strictly follow the doctor’s prescription for orthopedic mattresses. King Koil orthopedic mattresses have ICA and FCER certifications and offer a variety of options for different requirements. You can check out our dual comfort mattresses for days when you need more support because of the back pain and cushioning for others.
