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.
