(upbeat music)
- Good day, mates.
Welcome to the Bedroom,
or as I like to call it, the Workshop.
It's where I do all my best work, if you know what I mean.
Now, today, I thought I'd run you
through some of the best sleeping positions.
For those of you that have sleep apnea,
use one of these things, a CPAP machine.
Now, I don't know about you,
but personally, if I'm sleeping in one position too long,
I become uncomfortable, restless.
I need to change positions throughout the night
and I'm sure you are the same.
So it would be unfair of me
to look down the lens at you and say, "Stay off your back.
Only sleep on your left-hand side."
It's unrealistic.
It's very natural to change positions throughout the night.
And I want you to do the same,
but I also want you to be aware
that some positions are better than others.
Alright, let's go through them.
So we've got sleeping on your back, we call that supine,
left, right, and on your stomach.
And obviously, there's different variations
of those sleeping positions,
but they're the ones we'll discuss today,
starting with supine sleeping,
when you're sleeping on your back.
Now, unfortunately, this is the worst sleeping position
for those of you who sleep apnea.
And the reason being, when we lie down flat, what happens?
We have the full weight of gravity,
our jaw pushing backwards,
our tongue falling back into our throat.
So the airway, which is already restricted,
has the full weight of gravity just pushing everything back.
Our neck, if we've got a big neck,
all that tissue, that fat tissue,
is just compressing everything there.
Now, I'm fully aware that some of you sleeping on your back
is your only option.
So I'm gonna give you some tips on how you can do it right.
Now, many of you have heard before
that you need to elevate your head
when you're sleeping on your back.
And most of you'll go out and buy a bigger pillow,
a nice big firm pillow.
That's not right.
So if we have a nice big pillow like this one here
and we're lying flat on our back,
our body's flat,
but this big pillow, all it does is push our head up forward
and compress our airway,
making it harder to breathe.
You are squishing everything in.
What we need to do is get gentle elevation,
all right, like this.
And there's a few ways you can do it.
Many of you use this sort of thing.
It's a wedge pillow.
Now, what I like to do,
even this here,
I feel like it still makes my neck come in like that,
so I get another pillow.
That's much better.
This angle here is 10 times better
than being flat on your back
with a big kink in your neck, okay?
It's a nice gentle elevation from my toes up to my head.
Now, another option you can do.
(Instructor laughs)
I got this from Clark Rubber.
It was $60 on special.
It's just like a foam camping mattress.
And what you can do is this.
I'll just bend it down,
lift up the mattress.
(Instructor grunts)
Like that.
Okay.
Now, I can use a lower-profile pillow.
And once again, now I've got a gentle incline.
Now I know this doesn't look like big angle here,
a big increase,
but the truth is you don't need a big increase
to change the effects of gravity.
Gravity is stronger than you think.
Think about it like this.
How much easier is it walking down a slight decline
versus up a slight incline?
All right, so you don't need to change the angle by much
for it to make a big difference to your therapy.
Now, there are some benefits to sleeping on your back.
Think about this.
When you're on your back, you get a much better marcial.
'Cause when you're on your side,
the pillow squishes into your face, pushes your cheeks.
It's much more likely to disturb that marcial.
So that's one of the benefits.
The other benefit is this.
If we sleep on our back with a slight incline,
it helps drain all the mucus from our sinuses.
So everything inside your sinus here,
normally when you're sitting straight up,
gravity helps it drain.
It drains down the back of your throat
and into your stomach.
When you are lying flat,
the reason you get congested a lot when you first lie down.
You're fine during the day,
you lie down and straight away you're like,
"Hmm, my nose is blocked.
What happened? I was fine two minutes ago."
The main reason is this.
When you lie down flat on your back,
you no longer have gravity helping to drain all your sinus
down into your stomach.
So just this slight angle here
everything now is sort of angled down again, right?
Like I said, gravity is stronger than you think.
And the gravity,
even this slight angle from my head, it's angled down.
It's gonna help drain the sinuses,
which will make it easy to breathe for you.
So great tip guys,
just try and get yourself on a nice little bit of an angle.
It's gonna make the world of difference
to those of you sleeping on your back,
but also for those of you on your side as well.
You can do this and still sleep on your side as well.
Get to the side of the pillow like this.
Sleep on the edge here.
You're on a bit of an angle here, and it will help,
it really will.
All right, moving on.
Sleeping on your side, left versus right?
The one thing I'll tell you straight up.
If you're someone who has GERD, acid reflux, heartburn,
that sort of thing,
you want to avoid sleeping on your right-hand side
as much as you can,
so sleep on your left-hand side.
When it comes to apnea control,
I've read studies that say sleeping on your left is better.
I've read some studies
that say sleeping on your right is better.
My advice to you is just do what's comfortable, okay?
If you're sleeping on your side, left-hand side here,
what I find is comfortable
is I like to put a pillow between my legs, like so,
little cuddle pillows.
My wife calls it my cuddle pillow.
I don't cuddle her much anymore, only in the mornings.
(Instructor laughs)
So just put a pillow like this between your legs
and I think it's best to get to the side of the pillow
so that your face isn't distorted.
You wanna sort of get to the edge of the pillow, like so.
So this is perfect for me like this, leg slightly bent.
I'm feeling pretty good about this sleeping position.
But like I said, stay off your right
if you're someone who gets acid reflux and GERD.
And last of all, sleeping on your stomach.
Sleeping on your stomach is totally fine
for snoring and sleep apnea.
Some people find it a little harder to breathe
because of the compression of the chest
from the weight of the body onto the mattress.
However, if you are comfortable, go for your life.
Now, if you are a stomach sleeper
I highly recommend you check out the mask
that have the top of the head connection
where the tube connects.
This one here is a P30i.
We've also got an N30i here.
Very similar, but the cradle instead of the pillow.
And ResMed also make the F30i, which is the full face mask.
Thanks for watching, guys.
I hope you enjoy the video.
If you did, make sure you hit the thumbs up,
subscribe to the channel.
As always, sleep well whatever position you're in.
Look after your mates and I'll see you soon, bye.
Good day, mates.
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