If you are suffering from back pain, consider sleeping with a pillow between your legs. The truth is, sleeping on the side with a pillow put between your legs may help you relieve sore back by keeping your pelvis neutral and preventing your spine from rotating while sleeping.
That said, by keeping proper alignment the stress from your back tissues relieves and thus reduces back pain, especially the one caused by sciatica or herniated disc. So now, let’s have a look at the benefits sleeping with a pillow between your legs can offer you!
Benefits of Sleeping with a Pillow Between Your Legs
If you are sleeping without a pillow, you may have noticed that your hips and back twist. But, putting a pillow between your legs can, as we said, help you align your sleeping posture and provide the following benefits:
- Back and Hip Pain Relief
According to Trusted Source, 23% of the world’s adult population suffers from chronic back pain. Luckily, they can all find back pain relief by correcting their sleeping position as such pain is typically caused by poor posture.
Hence, if you are one of those 23 percent, try putting a pillow between your thighs or knees to improve the position of your hips and pelvis during sleep and take the strain off any inflamed muscles or ligaments.
- Reduced Sciatica Pain
Furthermore, sleeping with a pillow between your legs can help you reduce sciatica pain. Sciatica refers to the pain that occurs along the path of the sciatic nerve that goes from the lower back through the hips and buttocks and down each leg. And, in general, it only affects one side of the body.
This means that if you are sleeping in positions that involve lower back and hip twisting, you are actually making your sciatica pain worse by compressing the nerve. By putting a pillow between your knees, you will avoid twisting and thus decrease compression.
- Alleviated Herniated Disc Pain
Similar to sciatica, herniated disc pain is yet another common type of pain people suffer from due to poor sleeping positions. It refers to an issue with one of the disks that sit between the bones that stack to make your spine, i.e., the rubbery cushions between your vertebrae.
Namely, any excessive rotation of your spine can pressure your spinal nerves and thus cause pain. Yet, sleeping in a position that lowers the chance of spine rotation, like sleeping with a pillow between your legs, can help you alleviate herniated disc pain.
- Better Posture
Last but not least, another research by Trusted Source has shown that long-term sleeping in poor, i.e. nonsymmetrical, postures can lead to negative structural changes in the spine. So, improving sleeping posture by using a pillow between your legs can help you keep your spinal health and have better posture.
By doing so, you will ensure that your spine is in a neutral position and that the curvature of your back is supported. For extra support, you may even place a small pillow under your lower back.
The bottom line, if you suffer from chronic back pain, you should definitely consider placing a firm pillow between your knees to keep your pelvis and spine in a proper position which will help you reduce pressure and pain.