Health Essentials – How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep
Hey there. Dr. Fedich here, Village Family Clinic, clinic director here. We're going to talk to you about getting a good night's sleep. So probably over twenty one years, one of the most common questions I get asked about is how to get a better night's sleep. And we're going to talk about that today. So just bear with us. It'd be a really great presentation, with some helpful practical sleep tips. Get a pad and paper out and take some notes, because this is going to really help you get a better night's sleep out there.
What is Sleep?
So what is sleep? Sleep is a basic human need. Right? The body does not heal from not sleeping. A lot of times, patients come in with back pain, neck pain, and they wonder why I'm asking about their sleep so much. And the reason is because if you're not sleeping, you're not healing. So your body only really heals when it's asleep. And, you know, if you cut your finger, you'll notice you kind of wake up in the morning. It looks better than when you went to sleep. That's because most of the body's healing is really done during sleep. So healing's done during that. It's also a way to time out from a busy routine. It's something your body and your mind, more importantly, needs to reset, restore, refresh, and replenish. So really, a lot of our healing and getting better happens during sleep.
Sleep Cycle and How does pain affect?
So what is their sleep cycle, and how does pain affect that? So the most common reason for not getting a good night's sleep is actually pain. So that's why as a chiropractor, we'll dive into a lot with patients. People with chronic pain are the number one reason why you're not sleeping. So it's not stress, anxiety, those things. They certainly do happen, but the number one reason is actually pain. It's not just stuff people don't even realize. They don't realize that their neck or back is what's keeping them up. But people with chronic pain don't get as deep as sleep. They wake up more often and get less efficient sleep. So you might even be thinking you're sleeping through the night, but you're not getting a good night's sleep, so you're not feeling well rested. You're tossing, turning, getting in weird positions, and not really getting good restful sleep. So pain is the one reason why people are not sleeping well.
Sudden sleep affects pain again. So short sleep times, fragmented sleep times. So, again, not sleeping seven, eight hours. Waking up a lot, you know, having pain at night is what is the number one cause for that. Not sleeping well, then it creates more inflammation. So we get stuck in this vicious cycle. You know, say your back hurts, so we're not sleeping well. You're not sleeping well, so your body's more plain. It's not healing, and the back doesn't heal up. So our sleep habits, poor to see how it's the less active days, which means that we get stuck in this cycle. So you didn't sleep well, so you don't feel like doing much in the day. We don't exercise. Don't move around much. And then you didn't use your body enough, so you don't sleep well again the next night. And, also, if you do have back pain, neck pain, those types of things, we're not moving, which we found is actually making these problems worse. So it creates this, like, vicious loop or cycle where we're stuck in this anti-sleep pain cycle.
So you sleep well. You're going to wake up feeling refreshed, alert, ready to face your day. When you don't, pretty much everything suffers. We've all probably been up late with kids or family. Really, so we're not in our best mood the next day. Maybe our temper's a little short, a little less patience. Everything suffers when we're not sleeping well. It also reduces we're not renewing their functions. It's also a period where growth and repair happens as I mentioned earlier. So, like, you know, if you really didn't sleep and you cut your finger, it's really, like, going to take forever to heal. So most of the repair, healing, and for children and young people growing is happening during your sleep. And deep sleep. So it's not just, you know, taking a nap. You really got to get that deep sleep waste. We'll talk about it a little bit later.
Good sleep's the key to vital health, so it's going to really affect all your health. So good sleep is not merely, you know, closing your eyes, but it's possibly falling and staying asleep and going through the proper sleep cycles to get your brain function working right, your hormones, your rhythms, and everything else. So it's really more complicated than we may be thinking.
How much sleep do we need?
So, again, how much sleep do we need? So a lot of you are really off on this a lot. I'll do consultations with children. You know, we do treat infants. I just had a colicky baby, hadn't slept, a couple adjustments, kids sleeping again. But so babies, sixteen hours a day. So lots of times do hear infants not sleeping enough. They need their full, like, ten, twelve hours at night and make up the rest in naps. So little children are going to need two naps a day and a good twelve hours of sleep. Teenagers, we all know the hardest way of a teenager. They need a little more sleep than adults, about nine hours a day. So, no playing video games till one in the morning. Got to get some nine hours of sleep. And adults are going to need seven to seven and a half hours. So, we've heard that eight hour thing a lot. That's kind of an average. As we get older, we actually need a little less sleep. So 70 year old's going to need less sleep than a 25, 30 year old. So adults, we're going to aim for seven, seven and a half hours, and everyone's a little bit different. But we're going to get in these proper sleep cycles, getting a good circadian rhythm, which we're going to talk about in just a minute here. So, again, there's a chart, sixteen hours for babies. Teenagers, nine hours. Adults, seven to seven and a half hours.
So what's going to mess up that clock? Light and temperature are one of the big things. So now we're going to talk about some other things about this. But now with the devices in our face, that is a big problem with sleeping. So people have their iPads and iPhones on at nine, ten o'clock at night. That light, your body thinks it's daytime when it's actually dark out, and it's throwing off our normal cycles there. Other factors, things, not getting sunlight throughout the day, so winter's a little harder, electromagnetic waves, frequency, and when we're eating, which we'll talk all about.
So big sleep stealers here we're talking about. Number one, we talked about chronic pain for sure. By far, it's like sudden stress and sleep problems are due to pain. And, again, you might not realize that your neck, back, elbow, knee, or something is preventing you from not sleeping. Course, psychological factors, like typical stress we talk about, lifestyle stress. Shift works. We do a whole two hours on that. But working shifts, night shifts, switching shifts, like policemen, firemen, that stuff is really tough on your body. Jet lag is a real thing, so we're changing time zones. Long flights, that can affect it. Environmental interferences, sunlight in your room, too hot, too cold, lights, etcetera. Again, number one by far is physical factors. So there's a lot of, you know, aches, pain, strains. Those are what's keeping most people up. And a lot of medications as well. So you have to check your medication list. There are a lot of medications that don't allow us to get a proper night's sleep or mess with your sleep cycle. So that is something to check as well.
Why sleep is important
So why is sleep so important? We talked about that, but the three main functions really to keep us alive are eating, breathing, sleeping, and drinking. It's the most important part of recovery. Again, nothing really heals when we're not sleeping, whether back pain or a cut on your finger. Healing is mostly done in your sleep. It's also the most important, the circadian rhythm. So the body's natural rhythms throughout the day, we have awake periods, sleep periods, high activity, etcetera. So sleep's obviously really important for that. Over 50 studies have been done to show that mental performances, reaction time, concentration, memory, and reasoning all decline as sleep decreases. So it's not just not feeling well. Your reaction time is slow, whether you're driving, concentrating, memory, reasoning, making good decisions, etcetera, all will be affected by improper sleep. So it's very, very important.
So you're not alone. It's a huge problem. It's one of the biggest problems in the country. Over six million Americans are looking on the Internet for sleep. That's an old stat. It's gotten worse. Sixty percent of people have problems a few nights a week with sleep. Most common problem is insomnia, not being able to fall and stay asleep. Most common concerning factors, people stay stressed, thirty percent. Health problems of pain, twenty two percent. Again, if we actually dig into that, some of the ways that health problems are the number one reason. Light noise and temperature are a big thing. Partner sleep habits are about 12%. So I don't go a day without hearing a wife complaining. Usually, the wife complaining about the husband snoring, keeping her up, tossing, turning as well, being anxious sleepers. So that's another thing to consider. We'll talk about it as well.
Alright. So most adults are sleep deprived. Average sleep's about seven hours. Thirty five percent of people will sleep more than that. They're going to sleep eight or more hours per night. Thirty six percent, so more than a third are going to sleep less than six and a half. So we need a minimum of seven, seven and a half. People try to compensate by taking a nap on the weekends. Studies show average after about forty minutes, but contrary to what people might tell you, you cannot make up missed sleep by taking a nap. It just doesn't work that way. It might feel good, and some naps are okay. But you can't say I only slept six hours last night. We'll take an hour nap today, and that'll be seven. The body doesn't work like that. We need seven straight hours, seven, eight straight hours.
Somewhere about napping. People 65 and older, fifty three percent report taking a nap, which is quite a high number. Between 30 and 64, it's about thirty five percent. Eighteen to twenty nine year olds, forty one percent. So quite a bit of people are napping out there. Night shift workers are really tough on your body. They've shown people working night shifts, decrease life expectancy by about ten years. So working night shifts can take ten years off your life. So if we can get away from that, it's obviously a good idea for your health. But you'd see how much worse it gets with night shift workers. Seventy seven percent are getting less than six hours. So the vast majority in less than six hours. Again, we're aiming for seven and a half, so that's huge. You know, almost 80% are getting less than six, and we need seven and a half. Forty four percent are getting less than five hours, and, also, they tend to take more and also longer naps.
Sleep aids, sleep medications
A lot of you know there's a lot of problems with the sleep medications. A lot of weird stuff goes on with those. One out of four US adults are taking a sleep medication, more common in women. As we get older, the sleep medication use increases. It's harder for people to sleep. It's over the counter prescription both, and about fourteen percent of people take alcohol to fall asleep as well. So it's a big problem.
Insomnia is by far the most common problem that we're going to see. It's difficult falling and staying asleep. Sleep apnea is a big problem. It's getting bigger and bigger. That's where the airways are restricted either through the nose or the mouth. Sleep deprivation again by choice or or your schedule, that kind of thing. So we're talking about some sleep strategies, relaxation, life changes, and treatments that are available for you if you have these issues.
Sleep. So, again, insomnia is the only problem people have. That's the perception or complaint of inadequate or poor sleep. It's usually due to one of these issues. It's kind of different. I always ask this too. Is it trouble falling asleep or staying asleep? Keep it as simple as I can. Difficulty falling asleep, waking frequently through the night and having trouble going back to sleep, getting up too early, or feeling unrefreshed sleep. So different reasons for this, which we'll talk about as well.
So what caused insomnia?
Being older as we get older tends to be a bigger and bigger problem. Females are almost two to one versus males for having insomnia. History of depression is a big issue. And, again, nerve pressure, nerve pain. So the number one is really physical problems. Number one, really being back and neck problems. That's as a chiropractor about how we can talk about this. So the number one reason really people aren't sleeping is neck and back problems. Transient insomnia means it kind of comes and goes. Things like stress, you know, we all know something bad happens. You get in a car accident, something like that. We're not going to sleep well that night. Noise in the area. You get noise, temperatures, change in surroundings, jet lags, and medication side effects are often something people forget about to look at as well.
Chronic insomnia. It's gonna be mental and physical, so it's usually a bit of both. So we have stress, anxiety, those types of things also combined with back pain, neck pain, and those types of things. Yeah. We talked about that anxiety cycle. I didn't sleep well, so we're worried about sleep, then we don't sleep well. Try to make it up with naps, so we just kind of get stuck in this endless loop. Caffeine is one. Yeah. I usually tell people about after 03:00. We don't want any caffeine really, probably even earlier than that. So I'll tell people people tell me they have trouble sleeping or drinking coffee after dinner at six, seven o'clock at night. That was kind of an old-fashioned thing to do. Have a cup of coffee at dinner. Bad idea. Alcohol or smoking before bedtime. So if you are a smoker, nicotine is going to keep you awake a lot of times, so we don't want to have a cigarette or whatever else right before bed. Alcohol, I know sometimes, like, a little bit of alcohol might relax you, but once you start having more than a glass of wine, that actually disrupts your sleep cycle. We don't go into deep sleep cycles. Again, excessive napping or regular sleep patterns, not going to bed at the same time, taking too long in naps. Again, the number one reason is going to be a chronic muscle or nerve problem.
So what else about insomnia? So as we get older again, we talked about it. It is more and more likely to have trouble sleeping. Women, twice as likely as men, and depression's also a big risk factor. So it's always a good idea if you're having real trouble getting a sleep study done. They're actually now at home kits. They'll mail you a kit. We put some pads on our chest and some other things. And you do a sleep site right in your own home now, and they mail it off. A doctor that specializes now will read it for you and let you know. So you don't have to sit in a sleep lab anymore. So, again, assuming you could change this, a positive mental attitude goes a long way. We want to try to change that. We're going to go a lot about it in a minute. Having a good sleep strategy. So I really have a good routine, you know, at 08:00 and, you know, some of the staff here make fun of me, but my phone goes on “do not disturb” at 09:00 at night. That's do not disturb. You know, that's on the iPhones, you can hit a button. If it's merged, it'll go through, but everyone else gets that message. It's on do not disturb. Mine goes on at nine, so people might be texting me work stuff or questions. 09:00, it's off. I don't want the screen on. I'm getting ready for bed. That's my sleep routine. It's right at nine, and you can ask my staff. So to get routines like that, getting the electronics down, the screens off before, some sort of good routine, whether it's chamomile tea, it's a bath before, some relaxing routine, and getting in a good nightly routine. And a lot of natural therapies and stuff you can take, we'll talk about. And, again, take care of the physical problems. So the number one reason is something's aching pain, keep me up. You might think your back's just bothering you a little bit, but at night, your body's kind of worrying about it, so to speak, and thinking about it, and you're tossing, turning, and not sleeping well. So make sure we're getting rid of any of those kinds of problems.
What sleep can do to you
So sleep, again, what does it do? It's going to improve our nervous system, prevent and reverse depression. So good night sleep is going to help with depression, hormonal balance, increase your concentration, and boost your immune system. You're getting a good night's sleep. It's tremendous for the immune system, reduces cholesterol, improves learning memory, and maintains emotional harmony or just everything being at peace.
Does a Good Mattress Improve Sleep?
So, again, baby boomers are kind of the leading way, leading trends for this. Talk a little about mattresses because I got asked, like, 10 times a day what kind of mattress is best. So, obviously, you don't have a good mattress, and, you know, I'll start talking to patients about sleeping in a couple minutes in. You know, how old is your mattress, oh, it’s 20 years old. Well, that's probably a big part of the problem. So mattress, I tell patients all the time, you spend a third of your life in your mattress. You're spending, you know, one twenty of your life in a car, and you're spending 50, 60, 80, a hundred thousand dollars on a car. If we're in a mattress for a third of our life, it's worth spending a couple bucks on. But you don't need to spend a fortune on it. We'll talk about it for just a sec.
So much stuff has changed a lot in the twenty something years I've been in practice. Comfort and firmness is really important. Real good, important health. Memory foam has really taken over the market and is most recommended. I have memory foam. My kids have memory foam. I do recommend the foam mattresses. You do not have to get the expensive Tempur-Pedic. There's a ton of other ones out there. Getting a little bit better bed sizes. You got to do room, a little bit larger mattress, especially if you have a partner with you. It's going to give you more room. We're talking about foam mattresses. The thicker they are, the more support we're going to get. Alright. Tell people to watch your beds, your bed frame. Make sure you can fit it. But, technically, the foamer the thicker the foam, the better off they're going to be. And pillow top mattresses are also okay. I generally recommend the foam, but pillow tops are okay if we have a nice firm spring underneath with a thin pillow top. It's another way to go. But if you're looking to get one, I would definitely go with these new, foam mattresses for sure.
What you sleep into may make a huge difference
So what you sleep into may make a huge difference, obviously. Doesn't give enough support to the spine. If we're sinking in too much, it's going to cause a lot of back problems. You're going to have improper spinal alignment, then the muscles will not be able to relax, and you're not going to sleep. Proper sleep mattress is going to keep the spine nice and straight and even, then the muscles can relax, and we can sleep. So it's not just about your alignment as a chiropractor here, but if your spine's supported, the muscles can relax, and that's going to allow you to sleep well. So it's not just about keeping alignment. It's about letting the muscle relax and get a good sleep.
Alright. So depending how you sleep is going to depend on your mattress. So generally, ask patients during their consultation, ask everybody back-sleep or side sleep or stomach. Stomach is the one way we really don't like, especially as chiropractors. There's not a good way to sleep on your stomach without causing some back pain or pressure. Sleep on our back, we want a medium firm mattress. Too firm on our back. I'm just going to push on the shoulders here. Too soft, and the hips will sink down, not causing good alignment there. So you want your spine to be nice and aligned pretty well. So not medium firm. I generally tell people it feels a little too firm in the store. That's probably about right. You're only in it for, you know, five, ten minutes and then eight hours a day for ten years. If you're going to need that support. So a little bit firmer than you probably think.
Side sleepers can be a little softer because the side sleepers, we need those hips to sink in. We need pressure relief. Again, the hips and shoulders are going to be into the mattress. So we wanted that to sink in just a little bit, but not super soft. Trust me. Right? Memory foam is going to be best at that. So the foam match should be good. Again, you don't need to spend $4,000 Tempur-Pedic. There's a lot of good $2,000 king matches that are fully foam out there.
Stomach sleepers, again, I generally do not like that. Some people I know can't break it. I encourage you to try to break that habit, causing a lot of stress on the neck. Just think about it. How are you going to breathe face down? So we have to twist our neck all night. And no matter what, that's going to cause some neck problems. But if we do stomach sleep ultra firm, we don't want any sinking into that because it's going to cause more back problems. Your back already kind of sags when we're on our stomach, and having a softer mattress is going to be a big problem. So we want a nice firm mattress. You can do a little thin comfort top if you want, but you want nice and firm. And a lot of times, the spring ones are sometimes better for the stomach because it gives that extra support. But, again, I highly encourage you if you're a stomach sleeper to try to break that habit.
So, again, sleep problems are usually secondary. You can play with some sort of musculoskeletal problem. Back pain, neck pain, elbow pain is really what's waking you up. People do best when they do sleep and relaxation studies along with some sort of treatment. So people take care of the neck and back pain and doing some of these sleep relaxation stuff we're going to teach you about is going to do really well. Over half of people that just did chiropractic care alone with no sleep stuff are going to get a better night's sleep. Just just go to the chiropractor. You get 50%, get a better night's sleep, doing nothing else. Nothing we talked about, mattresses, relaxation, just going to the chiropractor. That's pretty cool. If we do sleep and relax without chiropractic, less than half did better. So doing everything you can, getting a fancy mattress, all the relaxation, meditation you think about, you're actually better off not doing any of that and just going to the chiropractor. We have better results. But obviously, you combine it, we're going to do awesome. So that's the idea.
So, again, misaligned vertebrae in the spine. We're not sleeping well, misaligned the vertebrae or the vertebrae or misaligned putting nerve pressure on. That's most likely causing sleep issues. Like, 90% are coming from the back and the neck.
So arthritis, people that are raised in have worse sleep problems, seventy percent. More pain after sleep. I'll ask a lot during consults. Do you wake up feeling sore and stiff? And the people with the rest would typically tell me yes. Then we're going to get bad sleep and cause the arthritis to actually get worse. So it's going to create a lot of problems. It's important to reduce the joint pain as much as possible to try and go to sleep. That last line, most important. So whether that's chiropractic care, we're doing laser therapy, any of that kind of stuff, we want to do that before bed to get all the inflammation calm down so we can get some sleep and not cause problems to get worse.
Alright. So here's the crux of the presentation. There are, like, 10 tips to get a good night's sleep. Again, we're going to avoid stimulants late in the day. No caffeine after, like, two. You know, a lot of these young people are drinking Red Bulls and the Monsters all day long. Right? We got to get rid of that. We mentioned temperature a couple times. Most people's bedrooms are too warm. So ideal sleep temperature is actually 68 to 70. But the thing is if your room is 68, you get under the covers. Now it's probably 72, 73. So a lot of times, low temperature in a room can be the best thing for you. Regular exercise has been the best thing, one of the best things you can do for sleep. Just even go for a walk every day, running a bike, something you can do. Reduce electromagnetic frequencies, that means your phone and iPads. I, you know, all the time, I'm amazed. I just had a gentleman. You know, I can't fall asleep, I have trouble sleeping, and, you know, to basically realize iPad answering emails at 11:00 at night, then he can't fall asleep. Well, if you're in bed and, you know, good general rule, no electronics in the bedroom, that's a big one. Sleep and clean darkness. So a lot of times, like, in my house with the kids, we have those blackout shades behind the curtains. A little bit of light coming through makes a big difference. So it might be a little little thing for you. Check the curtains. Maybe we have sheer curtains, little lights getting in, even from a streetlight or cars going by. Some blackout shades, you put them behind the curtains and put the curtains. That can make a huge difference. Go to the chiropractor. We just showed you that it's more effective than any of the stuff you can do, or 50% effective just getting to the chiropractor. Pretty cool.
Journals, getting your thoughts out. You know, a lot of people, especially when we talk about women, all these kinds of thoughts, and what we have to get done during the day is building up at night. Getting those all out on a piece of paper can really get some of that off of your plate. Get a bedtime routine. Again, like I said, I turn my phone off at 09:00. It's on do not disturb. We're reading in bed. Maybe we will have a cup of tea. You know, getting a good nighttime routine. Now one of the biggest problems is doing something different every night. You know? One night, I watched TV. One night, I read. One night, I went for a jog. Also, we talked about exercise. Exercising late at night can keep you up as well. So don't do that. But get in a routine. You know? It's 08:00 09:00. My phone goes off. I read from 09:30 to ten. Lights are off at ten. It's kind of like what we do at my house. So get a good routine and stick with it for a while. Keep your bed for sleeping. So we're not talking about anything inappropriate here. We're talking more about people who are doing work in their bed. They're doing projects. We're doing all kinds of other stuff. The bed is for sleeping. Okay? And a mattress. Good supportive, comfortable mattress. I think we talked about the presentation, but, you know, eight to ten years is about it for a mattress. So I'll ask patients, you know, and they'll say, oh, you know, the mattress is pretty new, and those, you know, it's fifteen years old. So it's probably lost a lot of its support. Eight to ten years is a good timeline.
So, again, we're going to commit to these things for a while. I'll tell people some of this stuff in the office. They'll try it for two nights. It doesn't work. I want to encourage you to commit to doing it for at least six weeks. It's not a quick fix. Setting a routine takes some time. Your body takes about thirty days for a new routine. So we keep the stress out. No electronics, caffeine, all the stuff we talked about. There's a whole bunch of stuff in this presentation. Go rewatch it, but take five things out of this. Start it today. Try a natural approach first. I think, you know, everyone's had experience with sleep medication. There's a lot of crazy side effects. I always tell a story. I had a patient wake up naked in a Lowe's parking lot. He was a contractor, and the sleep medication made him sleep drive to Lowe's because he goes every day for his work and was naked in his pickup truck in the parking lot of Lowe's. So there are some wacky side effects of that stuff. It's very addictive. It can be dangerous. Again, I've had a patient with seizures from it once, etcetera. One of the things that I don't sell this stuff or do anything with it, Calm is a great natural supplement. It's a natural magnesium. It's really helpful for sleep. They have a regular formula and a sleep formula. It's available at Amazon, anywhere online. Really inexpensive. You take a little magnesium before bed. Every day I have patients say I tried the pills. They didn't work. Magnesium doesn't seem to break down fast enough in the pill form, so I highly recommend you try the powdered form.
Alright. So if you're having a headache, neck pain, back pain, upper back tightness, numbness, or tingling, you probably have a physical problem that's interfering with your sleep. I said the most common reason you're not sleeping is an aching pain. So if you're having any of these things, make sure you come on in and get us checked out.
Then again, here's a normal neck. We have a nice normal curve to see it on the neck. Everything's feeling good. You see the one on the right with the red. We've lost that natural curve to the neck from improper sleeping position. It's causing nerve pressure on the neck.
So three hours of back pain and tips. We're sleeping on our side. I get asked every day. Now we're going to sleep on our side with a small pillow under in between the knees to take some pressure off the back.
Sometimes I reclined a little bit. Now too much of this causes pressure, so some of these new mattresses do this. You can also buy a wedge. That creates a nice angle to take some pressure off there, but not too high up. That'll start compressing your spine.
When you’re side sleeping. Get a little pillow in between the knees. You see she has that little pillow in between the knees. It's a tiny little trick that really helps align the hips and pelvis. It can take a lot of pressure off the back and the SI joint or that, your hip region as well.
Stomach, again, we don't like sleeping with our stomachs. We try not to do it, but here's a little tip. Sometimes what'll happen is that your low back's going to sink in there a little bit, and you see this woman in the cartoon there has a small pillow underneath her stomach to try to flatten out that spine. But, again, you're going to see even the neck, even when we're doing that, it's still tilted up a bit. It does create some neck problems. So try not to, but if you can't do it, that's for you.
This is probably the best way. If your back's really killing you, I tell people, you know, if you're really hurt when they come in a lot of pain, this is what you want to try to do at least for a couple nights. We're going to have a flat on the back, knees elevated like that with a nice supportive pillow. If your back is hurting you, this is the way to do it. All you tell patients when they can, like, barely walk in new patients to lay on the floor like this for twenty minutes at a time.
So pillows, we're going to talk a little bit about pillows as well. I know this is getting a little bit longer here, but loft, firmness, and materials are three considerations for a pillow.
So a medium loft is going to take pressure off the neck and shoulders, but too much loft will push our neck up firmly. I want a bag of this for back sleepers. Medium firmness, you know, too firm, too soft. We want to bridge that gap between the back of the head and the bed, and soft to firm to confirm.
Side sleepers. So side sleepers have to fill this gap here between your neck and your shoulders. So we need a bigger pillow to fill that. So, actually, I got bigger shoulders. You have to fill that space with the pillow, or you're going to have a problem. You want it pretty firm. You don't want our head tilting one way or the other. So too much pushing up or not enough, it's going to tilt the head. So we gotta get that just right. It's really, really important. Here at the office, we have these adjustable pillows that are great for that.
Stomach sleepers, again, we don't love it, but, we're going to need a real thin pillow. So our neck is already pushed in. It's a side and up, which causes a lot of neck stuff. If we have too big a pillow, we're pushing it up even more. So we need a very thin pillow. Real soft, real thin, like as little as you can handle. So you want just a small buffer between you and the mattress. Very, very thin pillow. If you're getting one of those orthopedic pillows and you're a stomach sleeper, it's going to really make things a lot worse. So you want a real thin, inexpensive, thin pillow to just do that.
So there's a bunch of materials you may get out of the pillow. Foam or hybrid foam are going to be good except for stomach sleeper, we want something real compressible. Again, real thin, feather, down pillow, something very, very thin, minimal minimal in there.
Alright. So general tips. Again, mattress, six to eight years. Be careful getting out of bed. I often kind of coach people how to get out of bed, but, you know, a lot of times, if you're in neuro ops and have real bad back pain, I give you a couple stretches before you get out of bed. I'll tell people, you know, I don't care. You have to pee, whatever. Do this for just a couple seconds. So everything kind of tightens up on our sleep, and we just go smack our body weight on our back that really causes a problem. So just a little light stretching before you get out of bed can make a big, big difference. I tell people all the time in their pain, you know, know, it doesn't matter how bad you go to the bathroom. Just do this for twenty seconds and stretch the muscles before we just put our body weight on it.
And, again, stretch before bed. So, really, people in a lot of pain, I always tell them right before you go to bed and before you get out of bed. Do these couple quick stretches. Again, nighttime routine, we know it's, you know, 09:00 phone's off. We read, turn the lights off, get a nice routine, and reduce stress. You know, meditation's great, all yoga, all that kind of stuff as well.
So that's it. There's a lot of information there. Hopefully, that helps you out a little bit. If you have any questions, you know, always feel free to ask me, and I hope that we're doing well.
