Sleeping on your back. This is the best way to offload your shoulders. Maintain a comfortable neck position by using pillows. Sleeping in an inclined position (such as a reclining chair, raising the head of the bed, or by using pillows) can also help keep you from rolling onto your side.
If you face rotator cuff pain—or shoulder pain, in general—try sleeping on your back with a small pillow nested between your shoulder blades. Often, morning shoulder pain is caused by your body's flatness during nighttime hours.
The pillow for your head should support your head, the natural curve of your neck, and your shoulders. Sleeping on your stomach can create stress on the back because the spine can be put out of position.
What is the best sleeping position for neck pain? Two sleeping positions are easiest on the neck: on your side or on your back. If you sleep on your back, choose a rounded pillow to support the natural curve of your neck, with a flatter pillow cushioning your head.
position. so the best sleeping position to fix rounded shoulders is probably lying face up.
The reason that shoulders hurt at night is not fully understood. It may be related to the inflammation that occurs when the joint is in a prolonged static position or it might be due to the inward position of the arm while at rest.
Still pay attention to the pillow under your head. It should only be thick enough to create a straight line from your head and neck down through your spine. Your shoulders should not be on the pillow.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, sleeping with your arms overhead in the starfish sleep position may protect against shoulder pain. Researchers that specifically looked at the starfish sleep position, as opposed to back sleeping in general, found that shoulder pain was less common in starfish sleepers.
If you are a side sleeper, you should consider sleeping on the left side. It alleviates acid reflux and heartburn, boosts digestion, stimulates the drainage of toxins from your lymph nodes, improves circulation, and helps your brain filter out waste.
If you sleep on your back with your hands above your head, you're bound to have shoulder pain. This position puts pressure on the nerves in your upper back and might leave you with numbness and tingling in your arms and hands.
Get off your arm
Side sleepers who sleep directly on top of their arm often wake up with shoulder pain because of the sustained force that compresses the joint all night. You can ease this pressure by rotating your body slightly forward or backward to free the arm from between you and the mattress.
Specifically, sleeping on the side or back is considered more beneficial than sleeping on the stomach. In either of these sleep positions, it's easier to keep your spine supported and balanced, which relieves pressure on the spinal tissues and enables your muscles to relax and recover.
Reflux and heartburn: If you suffer from heartburn, sleeping on your right side can make symptoms worse, Salas says. That's true for people who have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and for people who have heartburn for other reasons, such as pregnant women. Flip to your left side to cool the burn.
Whether you should sleep on your right or left side depends on which health issues you face. The left side may provide more benefits, particularly for those who are pregnant, or experience gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). People with these conditions might want to take special care to sleep on their left side.
Research reveals more women prefer to sleep on the left side of the bed than the right - and the reason why is super cute.
Back Sleepers
A small pillow under each elbow allows the shoulder to naturally fall back against the mattress, the arms to rest in a neutral position, and lessens the urge to put your arms up over your head. This decreases pressure or tension on the nerves as they travel through the shoulder and elbow.
Blame It on Your Neck
Compression or irritation of a nerve root in the cervical spine can cause pain and/or numbness in the shoulder, arm, hand, and fingers. Enter your friend cervical radiculopathy. Of course, this pain traveling along the radicular nerve is no friend, especially when it interrupts sleep.
This may be due to longer work hours, an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, and more office work. Simply put, if you're experiencing back pain in bed, it's because there's an underlying problem that you need to deal with. It could be poor posture, stress, or even a medical condition.
Try a new sleeping position, particularly on your side. Avoid laying on your arms under your pillow, which can compress nerves. Make sure your wrists remain unflexed, since flexing can lead to tingling. If you often sleep on your back with your arms overhead, try keeping them next to you to reduce nerve pinching.