We have already talked many times about the beneficial effects of getting a good night’s sleep and the right hours each day; however, our posture also affects our sleep and how we feel the next morning. What is the best posture for sleeping? Face down? Face up? Sideways? The best posture is the one that gives us a greater sense of relaxation when we wake up and that will help us to have a better performance the next day thanks to that contribution of energy that provides us with a good sleep. Thus, among all these advantages for the proper functioning of our body, there is a position that the scientific community highlights: the left lateral decubitus position, or what is the same, sleeping on the side, preferably on the left side.
What are the benefits of this posture for sleeping?
The cause of certain pain or spending many nights without sleep (which cause a whole range of health risks) may have to do with the positioning of the head, back, arms and legs after falling into bed.
“It is clinically accepted that a change in sleep position can benefit people’s consistent health,” according to a study published in The Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice.
Thus, sleeping on your side, favors the processes of the glymphatic system (that mechanism of the mammalian body that is dedicated to cleaning waste from the nervous system) that, according to a study carried out by scientists at the University of Stony Broock New York (USA), and published in The Journal of Neuroscience , is the position that best contributes to eliminating waste in the brain and preventing the appearance of other problems such as Alzheimer’s disease.
As if this were not enough, sleeping on the left side also relieves heartburn and is ideal for pregnant women (both for their rest and for the fetus), as this position supports the spine and neck, which leads to a night of more restful sleep and helps prevent long-term injury.
On the contrary, we remember that the worst position to sleep is face down, as it exerts more pressure on the back and lungs. For pregnant women and people with gastric reflux it is even more discouraged.
Reference: The Effect of Body Posture on Brain Glymphatic Transport. Hedok Lee, Lulu Xie, Mei Yu, Hongyi Kang, Tian Feng, Rashid Deane, Jean Logan, Maiken Nedergaard and Helene Benveniste. Journal of Neuroscience DOI: doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1625-15.2015
