It’s bad to sleep on your stomach. That’s not really up for debate.

The fact is, as much as it helps with your sleep apnoea, you’re not really doing yourself any favours by sleeping with hunched back. Not only can it lead to poor sleep, but it’s also very taxing on your back and neck, can cause discomfort throughout the day and can also permanently have a negative effect on your back and neck.

What It Does To Your Spine

Back pain is not uncommon for stomach sleepers. It’s usually in the neck, joints, or back, but mostly, it’s in the back.

The reason for this is that stomach sleepers put a lot of their weight in the middle of their body as they sleep on their single mattress, making it hard to maintain a neutral spine position throughout the night and taxing their lower back.

The more stress you put on your spine, the more it affects the other structures in your body. After all, your spine is basically what’s responsible for keeping you upright, so it’s only natural that your body doesn’t feel right when the spine doesn’t get enough time to rest during your downtimes.

Common symptoms of spinal stress include tingling and numbness, pain all over the body and just feeling uncomfortable in general.

Your Neck Suffers As Well

Since you can’t exactly breathe through the pillow, your body will have to adjust eventually and turn to the side sometime during the night as you sleep on your stomach. This makes things a lot worse because now, not only is your spine already out of alignment, but your head as well. A night of this bad sleeping posture doesn’t really cause that much pain, but over time, this can cause chronic pain in the neck, among others.

In the worst case scenario, sleeping on your stomach can lead to a herniated disk. This is when the gelatinous disk between your vertebrae ruptures, irritating the nerves and often causing unbearable or debilitating pain.

Tips For Stomach Sleepers

Here are a couple of useful tips for individuals who really just can’t help but sleep on their stomach:

• Don’t even bother using a pillow at all. The less angled your head and neck, the better and fewer problems it will lead to down the line.
• Place a pillow under your pelvis to help give your back a chance to relax into a more neutral position. Doing so displaces much of the pressure off of your spine, making sleeping on your stomach a bit easier on your back.
• Don’t forget to stretch when you wake up. Learning the proper stretching techniques can help get your body back in the proper alignment while also strengthening the supporting muscles so your back and neck are not as strained by your peculiar sleeping position.

Of course, if possible, do try to sleep on your back or side instead of your stomach. This is especially true for pregnant women. One way that might help is buying a memory foam mattress in Singapore, which helps provide the necessary support for the entire body and could help you finally fall asleep without hunching.