[into music]
♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp,
physical therapist
- Brad Heineck,
physical therapist
- And together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- And today,
we're gonna talk about best sleeping postures
for neck pain, pinched nerves, nerves,
and arm pain.
- Sure.
Now, if you feel like,
you're having back pain
and problems like that,
don't worry.
We're gonna do a video on that too.
- You bet, all right.
- So this is just more we're gonna concentrate
on the upper the upper quadrant here.
So the first thing, Brad,
when you're sleeping,
no matter what position you're sleeping in,
if you're sleeping on your back
or your side,
you always wanna make sure
everything's lined up really well.
- We call 'em neutral position.
- Right, exactly.
- So my ears are kind of up over my shoulder.
- Right.
If I'm laying on my back
and I have a thick pillow,
- Yep.
- I'm gonna be like this.
- Sure.
Which is not good.
- Sure.
- If I'm laying on my side,
and I have a thin pillow,
I'm gonna be like this.
So I wanna be right in the middle.
- Right.
Keeping that neutral position.
- And that's where I think this pillow
comes into handy.
A cervical pillow.
The problem with cervical pillows, Brad, though,
is it's very difficult to find one that you like.
The reason I have this one here today
is my daughter bought one.
This was it.
And she hated this one.
- Yeah.
- And then she got another one
and she loves it.
- Sure.
A different
- Manufacturers. - thickness, yep.
- Softness.
- Yeah.
- And I don't know how to solve that problem
beyond ordering it.
- Yep.
- And then if you're allowed to send them back.
- Right.
Trial and error.
It's an issue.
But when you get that right one,
you really like it.
- Right.
And the thing about these is
you can try to simulate it.
- Yep.
I mean, you can put a pillow
and actually take a roll towel
and different thicknesses
and different softness
and slide it into the pillow.
And the idea behind this, Brad,
while, I was gonna show on this one first, Brad,
cause I think you can see it better on this.
- You're confusing me, Bob.
- Yeah, when you're laying back here like this
and my head goes into the valley here.
Right here.
You can see how my my neck lines up pretty well
with my shoulders now.
- If we're looking here.
And then the thicker spot here
goes up to support the neck.
- Yeah.
- And allows the head down into the valley of the pillow.
- Right.
So you you're getting some support for the neck here.
And then, conversely,
when I roll on my side,
I can flip this around, right, Brad?
- Sure.
- So it's a little thicker
and so I can stay up
and keep my head like this more level.
- Right.
- As opposed to going down like this.
- Right.
- So if you can see,
I wanna move your hand, Bob,
this is about,
maybe, four inches here
and this is about three inches here.
So it's designed like that to have different levels,
so you can work with it.
- I mean, if you're not gonna buy a special pillow though,
just go ahead
and use a thinner pillow,
if you're sleeping on your back
and then when you sleep on your side,
you can double up the pillow.
- Sure.
- Or you can put two pillows on there.
- Yeah.
So going like that can be a nice way to do it.
- Don't use your arm up in here.
This is hard on your arm and shoulder
and hard on the nerves coming out of the neck.
So you don't want to do that.
- Right.
- You wanna stay off that.
- Did you want to talk about this option?
- Yeah, yeah.
Sounds good.
- Like anything else,
they make rolls,
they're called, cervical rolls.
This is the McKenzie Cervical Roll.
And we're big fans of McKenzie.
And with this,
just like with that towel roll in here,
you'll definitely find this more comfortable,
- Yeah. - cause it's hollow.
- Yeah, cause it's nice and soft.
- And it's really a good - Yep.
- consistency.
- And you gotta put that in there.
And a lot of times,
you can do it outside the pillow,
but this way you can see where we're going with it.
- Yeah.
- And that is actually very comfortable, Brad.
- Yeah.
- I could see actually doing that.
I'm not one that does do that.
I'm gonna give you another little hint
and this is one,
I'm sure you'll not have seen anywhere,
this is by Mulligan Brian.
Mulligan, physical therapist out of New Zealand.
You're gonna take a pillow case.
And this is if you're having a lot of neck pain
and you're trying to get things to calm down.
You're gonna fold the neck
of the pillowcase lengthwise
- Yep. - like this
and then fold it again.
So into a third.
- So it's about three inches or across.
- Yep.
And what you're gonna do
is gonna go ahead
and wrap it around your neck
all the way around
and then you could tape it in place
or, I always hate to use a safety pin.
What if that comes loose in the middle of the night?
- Oh, Bob.
- Anyway. - Just do it.
- So it's on here.
And this is gonna prevent your neck
from going into the extremes of range of motion,
which might give you pain.
- Right.
- Which kinda leads me to the next thing,
by the way,
I don't like people sleeping on their stomach,
cause when they're sleeping on their stomach,
what do they do?
They have their head turned all the way
in one direction
or all the way another direction.
- Right.
- And the joints of the neck
don't like to be on their extreme.
- Right.
- And that's every joint.
- Right.
- The shoulder doesn't like to be in this position
for a long period of time.
- Exactly.
- It likes to be in the mid range here.
- Right.
- So this just something you may try,
if you're in the throes of neck pain,
- This is one of those things
that looks like,
uh, what's that gonna do?
But it's one of those little things.
- You'd be surprised.
- Yep.
- Patients are often surprised how well it works.
- Right.
- So I'd give it a shot.
- This is like one of those old home remedies
where you wrap the towel on your neck.
They can really surprise you
on how well things work that cost nothing.
- Give it a try.
- Yep.
- All right.
It doesn't cost you anything.
So the other thing we just talked about.
Don't sleep on your stomach
and people go,
why?
I end up on my stomach.
- Right.
Well, there's two things you can try.
One time I heard an orthopedic doctor talking about,
wear a baseball cap to bed.
And when you try to sleep on your stomach,
it'll stop you, obviously.
Of course, probably just flip it around in the middle.
- Right.
Maybe you could duct tape it to your head.
- There we go.
Yeah, that'd be a good thing.
I like duct tape.
- Otherwise you take an old t-shirt
and you're can actually just duct tape this ball
right to your chest.
And that's certainly gonna stop you.
Cause as soon as you roll over onto your chest
you're gonna hit the ball,
- Right, right.
- reminding you to get off of it.
- So some people,
they're laying on their back,
and, actually, go ahead lay down, Bob,
and just simply surround yourself with pillows.
- Right.
Yep.
And when you're sleeping,
you start to roll over,
you'll feel those pillows
and then you're, oh yeah,
I'm not supposed to roll over those.
Big long body pillows work good for those too.
- Oh, actually Brad,
And the reason why that's even better,
especially if you're having pain,
going from your neck
down your arm.
This is the thing I tell people all the time,
keep that arm supported
as much as you can.
- Sure.
So when you're laying on your back,
I have 'em do this type of thing.
I have 'em support the arm this way
or like this.
- Right.
It makes a huge difference.
- Sure.
I mean, you'd be shocked.
I also, even,
this is neither not talking about best sleeping position,
but even during the day,
I have 'em put a pillow here.
- Oh, that makes a big difference.
- Yep.
- I'll have someone
who'll put a cold pack on their shoulder
and they'll be on the arm rest of the chair
and then I'll put a pillow under there
and a smile comes to their face.
- Well, the worst yet is,
if they let it hang.
- Yeah.
- Cause the muscles are activating,
when it's hanging.
- Right.
Without you thinking about it.
- Yeah, without you knowing about it.
- Oh, one more, Bob.
Laying down.
- Sure.
- Okay, now I get to hit ya.
No, I'm just kidding.
Lay on your side.
- This side?
- Yep.
If you're side sleeper,
get a pillow right there
and that can make all the difference in the world
between sleeping
and waking up with a sore shoulder.
- Yep.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like you said,
the body pillows are nice.
- Yep.
- Or you can have two pillows here, even.
- Right.
- These are things you're gonna have to experiment with
to see what works for you.
- Right.
- Cause it can make a huge difference in what works.
When you're laying on your side,
I would try to stay off the point of the shoulder,
which is right on the shoulder.
Like this.
If you could just move back a little bit like this,
now you're on the fat,
the shoulder blade itself.
- Right.
- And that can tolerate it more than this.
- Yep.
And how do you do that?
And I just had a patient
and she does this.
She just takes a pillow like this
and kind of comes back like that.
- Right.
- It holds her enough to stop her
- Sure. - from rolling back.
And it keeps you from going this way too.
- Why don't you stay right there once, Bob?
- Sure.
- One thing I do with patients,
when I have 'em lay on their side on the plinth
and it's like,
pull your shoulder forward,
they don't get it.
And I'll come up to 'em
and I'll take this arm
and I'll just gently go like this.
- Yep.
- And then, oh,
I see what you mean.
And then you get that shoulder there.
It's more relaxed,
but you're still on your side enough to keep you happy.
And if you're habitual side sleeper, that is.
- This is one that I do, Brad.
And you looked at me like you thought I was crazy.
- I did.
- But, because I'm tall,
I tend to get a little rounded up in here.
And I actually like to sleep
with a roll towel
right below my shoulder blades like this.
- And that makes sense for posture
and whatnot.
And I'm thinking,
but nobody sleeps like that,
but he does.
- I do.
I just sleep like this.
This is what I do.
I sleep on my back,
and like this
and I love this.
This really lines me up, really.
- Sure.
Yeah, I can see that.
And you can go a smaller towel,
if it's too much for you.
- Yep.
- And I used to sometimes even put pillows
under both arms.
- Sure.
My wife used to just gimme a hard time about that.
But now I'm actually pretty comfortable like this.
Even a lot of times.
- She could just put her arm under there,
if you didn't have a towel.
- There's actually a syndrome called, honeymoon syndrome.
- Yeah.
- Where someone falls asleep on your arm.
- Yeah.
- And they get a palsy.
I mean, the nerve actually gets killed and dies.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
I mean, it comes back usually.
- Yeah.
- But it's called, honeymoon syndrome,
where your spouse falls asleep
on your arm
and you get numb and tingling.
- No wonder why my wife has been doing it lately.
She must have heard about that.
- And that's the other thing.
We don't want you sleeping with your arms overhead.
- Right.
- If you're on your back
or on your stomach,
again, which we don't even want you to do,
cause you're putting stress on those nerves.
The brachial plexus, basically,
is getting impinged upon.
- And it cuts off the circulation.
It can.
And If I sleep on my stomach like this,
my arms would literally go completely numb.
- Yeah, same with me.
- It's kind of fun,
but I don't like to do it.
- I've had 'em both go numb.
And one time I was trying to get the alarm clock
and I'm going like this.
Yeah.
- We should get a video of that.
- Yeah, well that would be funny.
That'd be worthwhile.
Any other hints, Brad?
I think that covers pretty much the upper body.
- About what?
Oh, sleeping on your side, yeah.
- You forgot what we we're even talking about.
Thanks everybody for watching.
- This has been running on for a while, huh?
What time do we have there, Lonnie?
- All right.
- Take care.
- They're watching.