In this video I'm going to show you seven tips to get blissful sleep if you suffer from
lumbar spinal stenosis.
One study found out that over 60% of people suffering from lumbar spinal stenosis have
trouble with the quality of their sleep as well as with the amount of sleep that they're
getting.
Because of the irritation in the nerves in their lower back, that translates to irritation
down into their nerves in their legs.
Getting better sleep should be a priority for somebody suffering with a stenosis problem.
After all, you should be sleeping around about eight hours a day.
If you can tweak a few things with your sleep so that you can get the best sleep possible,
you can begin to help out your lumbar spinal stenosis problem so that you can get better.
Usually, healthcare professionals are focused on what medications injections and surgeries
you should pursue for your stenosis problem.
But what about taking a good look at your sleep that might begin to make a difference
to turn the tide on your stenosis problem and get you feeling better.
And tip number one sleep in a recliner.
When you're in a slightly curved position with your back when you are kind of supported
this way, your hips are bent, you're not you don't have to be perfectly flat, like when
you lie on your back in that curved position with your knees and hips bent.
So to demonstrate it, it's kind of like this, like you would lay down or sit in a recliner.
And I bent my knees quite a bit that your legs might be more straight in that but with
a slight bend in them.
That position tends to be the most comfortable for somebody dealing with stenosis problems
in their lumbar spine.
As a result of that.
If you have not thought to try sleeping in your recliner, you might try that out.
Oftentimes we get people here in the clinic with lumbar spinal stenosis that they already
tell us that they're sleeping in the recliner, because it's more comfortable than their bed.
They've been having trouble with sleep at night, and they go to the recliner anyway
to relax and they just doze off there and take naps in the middle of the day.
So they just sit there at night.
What I would encourage you to do is try to get as much sleep as you can at night in the
recliner.
And don't turn on the television because that will keep you up at night which will also
interfere with the quality of your sleep.
So put the remote control away from you put your anything with a screen away from you
your phone, a tablet, a computer, and truly get good quality rest on that recliner so
that you can allow your nerves to flare down so that you can tolerate being on your feet
and walking for longer.
Number two, do a gentle lumbar stenosis stretch routine.
Right before you go to bed.
Let me show you three quick things that you can do this will take a minute or two at most,
you can take longer if you want to be enjoyed the sense the sensation of the stretch.
But really, you can just do this in a couple of minutes.
You can sit down on the edge of the bed or anywhere you have a chair and just pull your
knee up into your chest.
But before you do so, suck in your abs so that you slouch a little bit, you see how
my chest and shoulders come down just a tad whenever I slip in my abs.
What that does, you can see me from the side view my lower back, it's pushed out I'm rounding
out my back rather than arcing it.
Because in lumbar spinal stenosis, the back muscles, the ones that run up and down the
sides of the back are usually stiff and tight.
And they're causing a lot of compression in the spine as part of what's feeding into the
stenosis problem.
And so if you can get those muscles to relax consistently, especially before you go to
bed, you might have better sleep.
So slouch, but suck in your abs hold that in.
Then you're going to pull your knee to your chest and just hold your abs and it's a bit
of a workout, but it should be light and hold that knee into your chest.
This generally will feel relieving if you're going through symptoms right now.
Hold it for 10, 20, 30 seconds, and then do the other side.
You can repeat if you want to just doing this once slow is a good place to start 10, 20,
30 seconds holding the abs and you can't relax and just hold your knee and that might help
some but it really makes a big difference and you should feel stretching happening in
your lower back muscles.
When you suck in your abs.
Then do a knees to chest motion with both knees coming into your chest but you got to
lay down for this one.
So it looks like this.
Go ahead and get in bed or on the floor wherever you like.
Pull in both knees just to hold them right here then suck in those abs.
You see I want to suck in my abs, my bottom comes up holding the abs in pull your knees
and more.
Some people cross their feet.
Some don't.
It doesn't matter.
You want to hold here for a minute 30 to 60 seconds.
Just holding your abs in and doing this right here takes a bunch of pressure off your lower
back.
It takes the it stretches the back muscles, the ones that I was telling you about and
it also puts slack instead of tension on your nerves in your legs to allow them to kind
of rest for a moment, again, you can repeat it or you can just do it once, that should
already begin to feel like it's alleviating pressure through your throughout your back
and your legs.
And the third one is a quadruped stretching.
So you're going to get on all four on all fours hands and knees.
This is The Quadra pet position, because you got four touch points here.
And then you're going to suck in your abs again and sit back like a cat or a dog would
sit and just hanging out here and stretching and trying to push your low back up that way
to create a stretching motion, again, 30 seconds to 60 seconds longer if you want.
And you can repeat if you want.
If you do all of those for 30 seconds each, it should take you not more than two minutes
to do it.
The third one is your sleeping position.
Let's say you are still lying in your bed instead of the recliner, you don't have a
recliner or a comfortable chair that you can sit in.
But what's the best sleeping position for you, it's going to be a semi fetal position.
Let me just readjust the camera so you can see me.
So you're ideally going to need at least two pillows.
If you have a body pillow.
This works really well with the body pillow, grab one pillow for your head, just like that.
And the other pillow is going to be for right between your knees.
Lie on your side, your favorite side, the one that you prefer, you can always switch
back and forth.
And you're going to put the pillow between your knees just like so this takes that that
tension off the nerves it puts slack on the nerves.
It's kind of like that knees to chest position.
But there's one key thing you have to do with once you get in this position.
If you think of that back position, you don't want to be sticking out your butt which arcs
your back you actually want to suck in your abs, bring your chest and shoulders down and
adjust the pillows is such like a fetal position.
Then once you're comfortable, you might have a very slight it's almost dose stretching
a little back, then relax your muscles.
And then you can get real nice and comfortable and go to sleep.
Oh, you're so nice.
I think could asleep here myself.
If you have a body pillow, you could obviously put the pillow through here, it'll support
your feet, they're pretty long.
And you can even have it come up all the way to your head or if you prefer your own pillow.
And then the body pillow to hug on to that's really nice too.
So having the body pillow come up through here with your arms here just as another layer
of comfort, I highly recommend it.
I've got a link in the description below to our favorite body pillow that you can get
from Amazon.
All right back to this angle.
Number four is massage your back muscles.
And I've already been talking about how the back muscles are real stiff.
They're short and they're compressing the backbones of the spine.
That's what contributes to that lumbar spinal stenosis, so it makes sense that you would
massage them.
I've got a massage tool right here.
This is our to local massage gun.
It's a percussion massage gun.
And I've reviewed this is one of my favorite guns is one that we use here in the clinic
all the time.
We have a couple different brands but I think this one stands out just a bit more.
So you would get that thing going and put it on your low back and just work up and down
those muscles on your low back that are stiff and tight.
If you can't reach back here, very good.
Get a family member or a friend to help you out.
You can return the favor to them and do the same thing.
It feels really nice.
I absolutely love working with this thing.
could be here all day but I got to move on.
All you really need with this is a minute or two.
After that you get diminishing returns as far as softening up the muscle.
You can definitely have somebody really pressed into your low back and get a better angle
than you would with your hand.
But really I've seen just loosening it up for a minute literally 60 seconds set a timer
check the clock and you'll feel tremendously looser and your low back.
I did that for about that long and I feel a difference in my back already.
You can also just do a massage with your own hand just rub the muscles back there you can
have a family member rub the muscles back there but getting a device like this definitely
saves you a lot of hand fatigue and reaching back there in an extreme motion.
And this does a way better job in my opinion.
You can really dig in there, get some good angles on the muscle and loosen them up fast
and number five is get a mattress topper for your mattress and you will rejuvenate your
bed having a soft bed makes a big difference for lumbar spinal stenosis because when you
are on a softer surface your spine tends to align better I say tends to because everybody's
a little bit different.
And not all soft beds are alike.
Some are a lot softer than others.
But if you can't afford to get a brand-new mattress that's cool.
Just get a mattress topper it's a fraction of the cost and they go a long way and it
feels like you have a completely new mattress once you get one.
I would recommend a memory foam one and I don't have one here with me.
I don't have a whole bed or the setup to do that.
But I have these pillows these are some of the tools that we have here in the clinic
and they have this memory foam material which is real squishy, real soft.
Typically mattress toppers, they're a little firmer than this, but these, there are some
there this soft and what this does is it just contours so if you push into it, it kind of
keeps the shape for a while it's it contours around your body and supports you really well.
And for people that have lumbar spinal stenosis, I have found that they all recommend sleeping
on a softer mattress, check out our recommendation in the description below for our favorite
mattress topper.
Number six is getting an adjustable bed.
Now the obvious is get a brand new mattress, if it's time if it's been 10 years or more
really eight years is what they recommend.
It's up to you.
I don't know that eight years is a thing anymore with the different mattress technology that
we have today.
But if it's time for you to give me a mattress, give me a mattress.
But if you want to take it a step further, to make your sleep the best getting an adjustable
bed is another level.
It's the one that I'm talking about that lifts at inclines your head and inclines your legs
and thighs.
It's almost like turning into your bed into a recliner, those things are phenomenal because
they you might already have a memory foam mattress that goes in it, I don't think you
can use those with a spring mattress those are there too rigid.
So it really helps you to contour and take pressure off your low back and take pressure
off your nerves.
Those adjustable beds used to be really expensive, and now they're not, you can get one for under
$500.
These days, depending on the size of your bed.
Of course, I have never seen adjustable beds as cheap as they are today.
I've linked in the description, one that Amazon of all companies makes that you know, at least
the branded.
And there's a lot of other options out there.
If you go shopping on Amazon, I'm sure you can go to your local mattress store and find
options out there.
But I think online is probably the way to go, you'll find many more options and many
reviews, you can always compare with online and offline prices.
But that in my opinion is probably the best thing to do if you're going to invest a significant
amount of money, you know hundreds in improving your sleep.
Number seven, treat the root of the lumbar stenosis problem.
Now having talked about this in any of the other seven tips that I gave.
And the reason for this is because all the other seven, six tips that I gave you are
kind of quick relief things.
If you get a new mattress topper or you start sleeping with a body pillow, or using an adjustable
bed, you'll notice a quick improvement but it's not going to solve the root problem.
And it may not be long before the stenosis gets a little worse.
And even though you tried all these tips, it kind of didn't help you after a while.
And the reason for that is because it's not addressing the root problem.
It's fine to do all those tips, but you need to also at the same time addressed the root
problem and that would be fixing the muscle imbalances.
muscle imbalances are what set up a lumbar stenosis problem.
And just to show you quickly on the skeleton here in stenosis, you've got the lower back
here and you've got these big muscles that run up and down the sides of the lower back.
Those are usually way over developed way stiff and hard.
And they don't allow the spine to move very well and they compress all the joints, all
the nerves in the area that discs and that's what's causing the stenosis problem is probably
setting up arthritis too, if you've been checked for that and maybe been told you have that
what counteracts the effect of these back muscles is strengthen the abdominal muscles
and also strengthen the glute muscles.
Now we've got a program that we offer.
It's called the 28 Day Back Health And Wellness Boost Program.
And that program is focused on treating that root problem that I just discussed.
It will get your abdominals stronger Of course you have to do it and the glutes it focuses
on glute exercises and tons of coaching tons of advice by me of guiding you through an
exercise routine over 28 days so that you can improve the muscle imbalance.
That is the root problem of lumbar spinal stenosis.
I highly recommend you check it out.
We've got details about it down in the description below.
It's the 28 day back health and wellness boost program.
Hey, I hope this video was helpful for you.
I hope you go implement these tips.
If any of them helped you out, drop a comment.
Let us know if you have other tips that have worked for you share the wealth of knowledge
added on here.
Maybe we'll make a video about it.
Thanks so much for watching.
I'll see in the next one.
Bye