If you're looking for the ideal sleep position for you, your body, and your health challenges,
then this video is for you. Maybe you have back problems and maybe you have acid reflux which gets
worse at night, maybe you're snoring, or have sleep apnea, maybe you have circulation problems
and your arm falls asleep, maybe you have restless leg syndrome, and you're trying to
figure out which position is best for you. This is a great conversation because most people are
super confused about how to sleep at night and it can make a very big difference to your health all
around. Hey, my name is Lucas. I'm a yoga teacher, I am a breathing coach. Since we spend 30 percent
of our life in bed, most of that sleeping, most of that breathing, I've spent a bunch
of time looking at sleep positions, breathing positions, and health of nighttime nocturnal
patterns. I'm also someone myself who's struggled with sleep. I continue to struggle with my sleep,
so both personally and professionally this is a big area of interest for me. In this video
we'll talk about number one, why sleeping flat on your back is a terrible idea. Number two,
why side sleeping is ideal, if you're one of the 50 percent or so people who can pull it
off. Number three, if you're not one of those 50 percent, how to experiment with Fowler's position,
a very weird position that can be very effective. Lastly, we'll talk about some
simple sleep trackers that can help you understand if your sleep modifications are helping, hurting,
or not making any difference. A quick disclaimer here: if you have obstructive sleep apnea,
arrhythmic heartbeat, or if you have major circulation issues, please go see a doctor. This
is for education purposes only. Let's start off talking about the lying flat myth. When I talk to
most students, most people, most clients, almost everybody believes that in an ideal world we
would lie flat on our back like Dracula and sleep staring up at the sky like this. This is not true.
Most of this misinformation comes from mattress manufacturers, who for years, try to convince
us that somehow our back problems are related to our mattress. Some people think they need a
hard mattress, a firm mattress. Some people think they need a memory foam mattress. Some people have
these mattresses where you can drop an egg two stories high and it doesn't break. All of this
is marketing nonsense. The mattress you have right now is probably just fine. You might,
however, need some new pillows to make that mattress work better. Keep in mind for the past
40,000 years human beings have been sleeping in the dirt, they've been sleeping on leaves,
they've been curling up on top of banana leaves. These mattresses, these are very new. Your
mattress is not the cause of your back pain, your mattress will not be the cure for your back pain,
it's a lot simpler and at the same time a lot more nuanced than what the mattress manufacturers would
have you think. When you lie on your back, the big challenge is even though it feels good on
your spine, there are a bunch of other things that happen that are very, very detrimental to
your health. First and foremost your throat has a tendency to collapse in on itself. That's when
we wheeze, that's when we snore, and in extreme cases obstructive sleep apnea, where you literally
kind of choke on your own throat. This is a very, very, potentially serious condition,
that can have implications with your hormones, your weight, your mood, and so much more. It can
even be life-threatening. When you lie on your back like this also you're prone to acid reflux.
The acid from your stomach can literally come up your esophagus and can lead to exacerbating an
existing condition. Lying flat on your back like this is not ideal for breathing as well. And since
your breathing affects your nervous system, affects your heart rate, all in all it's just
not a position that you'd ever want to be in if you're optimizing for health. I do know that as
a back pain technique it can feel good, but for your overall health there are other ways that you
can accomplish the same thing. Which leads me to point number two, side sleeping. Side sleeping is
the best. If you can pull it off, it is the best. There are a couple of things to think about. When
you're sleeping on your side, the hardest thing is to maintain side sleeping for your entire evening.
If you can pull it off, if you're one of the 50 percent of people who can pull it off,
this is the best way for your spine, for your breathing, for your circulation,
for everything. So let's take a look at how this works. When you're sleeping on your side,
you often need to have less pillows between your head and the bed, and more pillows between your
knees. As we mentioned before, you probably don't need to invest in a thousand dollar mattress, but
you probably do need to invest in some inexpensive pillows, so you can adjust your head and adjust
your knees accordingly. When you're lying on your side you want your neck to be neutral,
which means more or less straight up and down. Forget about perfect alignment, but more or less
straight up and down. We also want our hips to be stacked and this is more challenging. So,
you can see here I have less pillows than most people use and I'm using a couple of pillows
between my knees. My goal is to be able to stay in this semi-fetal position for most of the night
and this is where most people go astray. Many people collapse forward under their belly, or
they fall onto their back, and they end up in some kind of roadkill variation throughout the night.
Some people experiment with pregnancy pillows, the big long donuts, and those can be helpful.
Whatever you do, if you're able to sleep on your side, stop watching this video, you're doing well,
that's the best place to be. Let's assume that you're not able to sleep on your side. let's
assume that some of these conditions are troubling you: back pain. acid reflux. sleep apnea, snoring,
whatever it might be. I'd like to introduce you to a very weird technique that's been used
in hospitals for a very long time. It's called Fowler's position. Fowler's position is an angled
position where you sleep with your back a little bit up. It's basically sleeping semi-upright.
If you go to any hospital around the world you'll notice they have these really complex beds,
these electrical beds right, you can move your back up, you can move your legs up,
these cost thousands of dollars. Hospitals would not spend that much money on these beds just so
you could eat your jello or talk to the doctor in an upright position. They do this because it's
a very, very healthy position from a breathing perspective, from a cardiovascular perspective,
it's a really healthy alignment for your spine, it's really great for your sinuses, it's a very,
very great position to be in from a health and wellness perspective. It is, however,
perhaps not the most comfy initially. So let me show you some ways that you can make it more
comfy. The first thing that you'll need is some kind of special pillow. These wedged pillows you
can buy online, they're relatively inexpensive, and it's an effective way to turn your bed into a
hospital-like bed without it looking medical. Now this wedge here is just about 20 degrees and for
a Fowler's position you basically need 45 to 60 degrees, you need a little bit higher. What I can
do to make this higher, this is what I do myself, put a pillow or a couple of pillows up on top. Let
me show you what it looks like. Lying down in this Fowler's position, again 45 to 60 degrees is what
we're optimizing for. Now, from here my throat is open, my respiratory system is open, my lungs are
free, my diaphragm can contract and expand more freely, and this is a really great position to be
in. Now note, if I get the position right my spine it's also very neutral, it's a great place for my
spine, for my breathing, for my acid reflux, for everything. But what you're thinking as
you're looking at this is you're thinking Lucas it doesn't look so comfortable. You're right,
it's not the most comfy position and you can sometimes get a lot of pressure here, and you
can sometimes slip down. The solution is you need to prop up underneath your legs. More pillows,
more blankets, whatever you might have. When you get in this position you end up creating kind
of this bird's nest where you're quite literally stuck, but you can start to get used to it and it
can be very comfortable. I'll warn you in advance, it doesn't come naturally, it doesn't come right
away. You'll have a transitionary period of a couple of weeks, or maybe even a month or more,
but the benefits can be tremendous. For many people their acid reflux at night goes away,
for many people their snoring is reduced or even eliminated, for some people even with sleep apnea
it's reduced, or sometimes the incidents are so rare they they can go off or stop using
their CPAP machine. Please don't do that without checking with the doctor, but this is possible
with a simple position like this. The reason most people don't try is because they simply haven't
gotten one of these pillows. It can make a big difference. So a full Fowler is 45 to 60 degrees,
a semi-Fowler position is essentially lower, so like this, somewhere between 30 and 45 degrees.
Start off with the higher position, if that works you could experiment with getting lower. Why would
you want to go lower? Well, it starts to feel a little bit more natural, like you're sleeping
in a normal bed, but again, you'll get better results the higher you are for most people,
but you'll be more comfy the lower you go. The last thing I want to talk to you about is app
tracking. If you start messing around with your sleep, playing around with different positions,
trying to figure out what's good for you, how do you know if it's working? There are some apps that
are free on your phone that can help. The first one is called SnoreLab, like snore laboratory,
SnoreLab. And this app will record your evening sleep. This is really helpful because you can
listen to yourself breathing, specifically you can listen for snoring, for wheezing, you can listen
for sleep apnea moments, they sound like this sort of interrupted snore. You can count your
breaths to see if you're over excited at night, if you're stressed out at night. It's a very simple
but effective way to check in with your sleep. There's a second app which isn't so accurate but
it's called Sleep Cycle. The free versions of both of these apps work pretty well and
Sleep Cycle will give you some indication of the quality of your sleep, it's not the most accurate.
But if you like these apps you might move on to something like a WHOOP band, or an Oura Ring,
or a Fitbit or an Apple Watch which will give you a little bit more detailed insight. The goal here
is not to become a sleep scientist, the goal here is to use this 30 percent of your life optimally,
so you can start to improve your health, not just with your spine, but also with your respiration,
and your circulation, and so much more. Hope you found this video helpful. If you'd like
more science-based breathing and yoga videos, hit subscribe down below. I always love to hear
your questions and comments in the section down below. And I'll put a PDF link to some of the
sleeping positions and some of the resources we've talked about as well. Thanks so much for watching.
You can always find my teaching calendar at yogabody.com, and I'll see you in the next video.