Who would think that your sleep position could cause you suffering?
Everyone has aches and pains. It is a natural part of life.
The weird thing is that we don’t always know where they come from.
Sometimes a small crick in the neck shows up and for the next few months turning your head to the right is less easy than it previously was.
Or some strange pain in the outside of the foot that won’t seem to go away and then it does.
This is the nature of living and I think these are all feelings that should be examined for their origin.
My work is mostly being a detective trying to figure out why someone has a particular pattern that is causing them pain and then trying to find the root of the pattern/pain connection in search of relief.
A couple of days ago in class, I asked everyone to lie down on their mat and show me the position they sleep in.
About half were in shapes that were almost guaranteed to cause them pain over the long run.
Positions such as sleeping on the stomach, on the side with one knee hiked up, and some others.
One of my sleep issues is what to do with my hands and arms.
I used to sleep on my side with both hands tucked in between two pillows under my head. I was always waking up with numbness in my left shoulder.
I soon figured out that since I was sleeping on my right side my left shoulder was hiking up to my ear and over time was causing a good deal of misery.
It took a while but I eventually got the top arm to lower. I stick it between my legs for comfort.
This helped a lot but I still have the other arm to deal with and I haven’t really figured anything out for it while I sleep.
But every morning when I wake up, the first thing that I usually do is sit on the side of the bed and let my shoulders relax. I literally let them drape down towards the floor as I lengthen my head up to the ceiling from the back of my neck.
As I do this I can feel hours of sleeping tension begin to subside. Life is what it is; a series of dilemmas and decisions that are endlessly placed before us.
How you sleep is one of life’s more serious dilemmas and one well worth exploring to find positive solutions.