Sealy: Could your sleep position be causing you pain?

If you rise each morning with aches and pains, and no chance of singing oh-what-a- glorious-morning, then you may want to look a little closer at your sleep position. Different sleep postures call for differing amounts of support across the body.

Here Sealy offers some great advice about associated aches, pains and sleeping positions: Take a back-sleeper for example. This posture takes up a large surface area with the pressure widely distributed through the mattress. However, a mattress that is too firm may leave a back-sleeper with an unsupported and therefore painful lower back come morning. On the other hand, a soft mattress may make a back-sleeper feel ‘engulfed’ with too much support and not enough room to breathe.

Solution? Choose a moderate-to-firm mattress and place a pillow under your knees and neck to limit back pain. Side-sleepers often experience pain in their hip and shoulder – especially if they are sleeping on a firm mattress that causes sharp pressure points where their shoulder and hip joints meet the mattress. Solution? A softer mattress will cause this pressure to diffuse and the side-sleeper will sleep dreamily again. Place a pillow between your legs to prevent hip pain.

Front-sleepers seem to experience the most neck pain. Often they must turn and hyperextend their necks in order to be able to breathe easily. A stiff neck is no fun and so a front-sleepers may prefer a mattress that gives moderate support- rather than too much or too little. Solution? Change you sleep posture! Strange sleepers: Sleeping with one or both arms above your shoulders or one leg out and one leg in can also lead to shoulder and hip pain. Solution? Try to sleep with your arms and legs in symmetry and fill in the gaps with pillows. For a wide selection of beds and mattresses, visit www.sealy.co.za.