How Does Sleep Help Your Back?

Good rest lessens the likelihood of muscle aches and a host of other problems. It lets your body regenerate many important functions that play a role in pain relief. Here are just a few:

• Allows the spine to decompress and recover from the demands of your day
• Produces beneficial hormones and chemicals to reduce inflammation
• Restores connections in the brain that improve nervous system function

The Cycle of Poor Sleep and Back Pain

Patients often complain that they wake up with lower back pain. Back pain interferes with falling and staying asleep, preventing the restorative benefits of a full night of sleep. Being sleep-deprived makes the pain worse. When you’re tossing and turning, it’s hard to find a comfortable position, and you’re even more aware of pain.

People may turn to pain medication, which unfortunately works against them by disrupting sleep.

Lack of sleep leads to a variety of problems that can increase pain, including:

• Reducing levels of growth hormone that heal the body
• Increasing sensitivity to pain
• Raising levels of inflammation
• Worsening depression
• Feeling more stress, which tightens muscles and increases pain

Tips for a Good Night’s Rest

Practice good posture during sleep. Your spine needs good posture to remain in proper alignment, avoid muscle strain and promote nighttime healing. How do you achieve good posture in bed? Here are some suggestions:

• Use a good-quality mattress that’s not too hard or soft. Test mattresses carefully when shopping. Replace your mattress at least every 10 years.
• Sleep on your side or back rather than on your stomach. Stomach sleeping places extra strain on your spine. To reduce pressure on the spine, put a pillow under your knees (for back sleeping) or between knees (for side sleeping).

Set a regular bedtime. Aim for 7-8 hours of sleep. Avoid the stimulating blue light from electronics before bed.

Stretch your muscles gently before bed.

Avoid stress. Relaxation techniques and meditation are helpful.

Maintain a healthy lifestyle. Avoid processed foods, sugar, alcohol, and of course, caffeine before bed. Daily exercise improves flexibility to help you avoid muscle stiffness in bed.

Chiropractic Care and Better Sleep

Chiropractic adjustments align the spine and promote better circulation, mobility, strength, and flexibility. This brings about the healing of joints, muscles, and tissues that relieves pain.

Your chiropractor’s care helps to alleviate your back pain naturally, without drugs or invasive procedures. Good sleep habits help to maintain your spine’s proper alignment.

Remember that it pays to take care of your spine every day…including during that 1/3 of your life you spend under the covers.

Schedule Your Free Consultation at our Broken Arrow Office

We’re here to help you at Eastern Oklahoma Chiropractic.  Give us a call at 918-940-4630.

The post How Sleep Affects Your Spine–and Vice Versa first appeared on Chiropractor Broken Arrow.

What are the benefits of chiropractic for brain health? The advantages extend far beyond neck and back pain relief. After a chiropractic adjustment, healing can improve in areas seemingly unrelated to the spine, thanks to its close connection with the central nervous system. Proper spinal alignment and movement provide essential nutrients to the brain through neurons surrounding spinal joints and tissues. Chiropractic adjustments help reduce nervous system stress, supporting better spinal alignment and enhancing brain health.

Scientific research links chiropractic care to improved sleep, better digestion, enhanced fertility, stronger immunity, easier breathing, improved focus, and much more. Millions of chiropractic patients experience diverse health benefits from regular adjustments. By focusing on reducing interference in the brain and central nervous system, chiropractors allow the body to function optimally, with natural healing benefits that support brain health and overall wellness.

Does the research support Chiropractic?

Skeptics often ask for evidence-based trials and research when discussing the benefits of chiropractic care. Over 120 years of healthy patients testify to healing which originated within the central nervous system. The last twenty years produced overwhelming amounts of clinical understanding that explain the mechanisms involved in the brain’s immense power to influence the body following an adjustment.

Research from 2017 provided insight into the profound effects a Chiropractic adjustment can have on the brain, nervous system function, and whole-body health. Using a $3 million P.E.T. (Positron Emission Tomography) scan, researchers measured brain and nervous system activity before and after an adjustment. Every aspect of measured brain function improved in the participating subjects. Changes in specific biomarkers were also found, indicating improvements in autonomic nervous system health. Autonomic health includes functions that occur in the body automatically without conscious direction. Functions include heart rate, breathing, hormone balance, blood pressure, fertility, sleep, immunity, and so on. Chiropractic influences the brain and central nervous system and directly affects autonomic controls.

The role of the nervous system….

Building Chiropractic evidence already exists in a contemporary world in which conventional medical research and care look for ways to improve nervous system function. Electroceuticals represent a new category of therapeutic agents that act by targeting the neural circuits of organs. The therapy involves mapping the neural circuitry and delivering neural impulses to these specific targets. The impulse occurs through an implantable device.

Advanced medical care will continue to involve nervous system health. The irony exists that modern medicine fervently pursues a means to improve health potential that already exists within the body. Chiropractors paved this avenue over 120 years ago. The body contains the tremendous potential to perform, heal, and operate if given freedom and access to optimal communication. The medical community sees a future involving electronic devices and invasive procedures. Chiropractors continue to use the latest science to help people experience health and healing through safe, effective nervous system care.

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Chiropractic adjustments unlock specific hormones required for better sleep. The body needs sleep in order to recover and initiate restoration from the trials and stress of everyday living. Most people know the importance of sleep but do not grasp the magnitude of sleep’s impact on health. The same people who acknowledge a need for sleep often compromise rest in favor of extra work or time spent invested in the busyness of life.  As a result, health suffers because lack of sleep detrimentally impacts every aspect of life and disease.

Regularly achieving less than adequate amounts of sleep destroys a person’s health

Continued sleep shortages contribute to depression, heart disease, lowered immunity, obesity, and type-2 diabetes. As a result, millions of people explore numerous trips to doctors and pharmacies in search of drugs and recommendations for better sleep. Americans spent an estimated $41 billion on sleep aids and remedies in 2015; that amount expects to grow to $52 billion by 2020. The issue of acute sleep deprivation impacts people more prevalent today than at any time in history.

A recent study determined that over 1/4th of people have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep

Nearly 70% of people struggle to fall asleep at least one time per week. Stress and anxiety rob people of the very remedy needed to combat diseases caused by stress and anxiety. Most people do not function well with less than seven hours of sleep. Daily routines convince people that they aptly manage on less than seven hours but the truth remains uncompromised by busy schedules. Most sleep sufferers do not realize or acknowledge the problem and never understand that better sleep drives so many aspects of quality healing and life.

Chiropractic offers a research-based solution

Research completed in 2015 linked an increase of specific sleep related hormones following a spinal adjustment. Chiropractic improves hormone chemistry throughout the entire body by adjusting misaligned areas of the spine which hinder mobility and nervous system communication. An intimate relationship between the brain and nervous system exists in every person’s spine. The nervous system directs all healing and function throughout the body by communicating through the spinal cord. The bones of the spine surround and protect the spinal cord and direct nervous system functions. Copious amounts of neurons lace the spine and communicate with the brain every single second. Clear communication requires appropriate alignment and movement of each spinal vertebra. Misaligned vertebrae produce a static-type message to all organs and tissues leading to imbalance and alterations in the release of
hormones, including sleep hormones.

Chiropractors do not cure sleep challenges. Chiropractors locate areas of misalignment and immobility in the spine which produce stress in the nervous system. These places of interference (called subluxations) hinder the body’s potential to communicate, heal, and perform at maximum capacity. Chiropractors help men, women, and children of all ages reduce stress in the nervous system through the appropriate application of specific, pain-free adjustments. The resulting benefits unlock health potential that optimizes all activities from work to better sleep.

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One of the best pieces of advice I have is DO NOT, under ANY circumstance sleep on your stomach. Eight straight hours of your neck is turned to one side and your lower back arching all night is going to leave you in pain the next morning.  If you have been sleeping that way your entire life, it is going to take a few weeks of sleepless misery to change your habit, but it will be worth it in the end, stick with it.  I recommend using a body pillow to start turning yourself over.

If you are a side sleeper, make sure you have a nice thick pillow supporting your head so that it is in line with the rest of your spine.  Also, make sure you are not choosing to sleep on an extra firm bed or that will create pressure points on your shoulders and hips.  Putting a pillow between your knees will also help your lower back be better aligned through the night.

For my back sleepers, thank you, you are the least likely to have pain from your sleeping position.  I would recommend getting an orthopaedic pillow for your neck that has the lowered area in the middle and roll for your neck to fall over.  I would also recommend those of you with lower back pain to put a pillow underneath your knees to provide support for your lower back.

Another question I get constantly is, “what kind of mattress should I sleep on?”  Honestly, there is no “one size fits all” when it comes to mattresses because we all have different body shapes and physical demands.  Personally, I love the Temper-Pedic mattress that my wife and I have slept on for just over 6 years but I have heard of others complaining about the way it makes them feel.  The best piece of advice I can give an individual regarding a mattress is to spend the extra time and money by searching out the appropriate mattress store where the staff has been trained in fitting customers for the correct mattress.  Too many times, people shop for mattresses based on the best deal but the experience will tell you that if you spend 1/3rd of your day on something, you want it to be quality.  Here in Broken Arrow and the surrounding Tulsa metro area, I recommend stores like Relax the Back, Mattress King and Mattress Firm because their staff is put through ergonomics training to fit the right mattress to the individual.

Keep an eye on how you feel when you wake up in the morning.  If you wake up sore or tired, you may need to look to your mattress as the cause of discomfort.  Also, don’t neglect pro-active spinal care like chiropractic care, exercises and stretches.  The more good stuff you can do on a daily basis, the better and better you are going to feel.  If you follow these tips you should enjoy more restful nights and less painful mornings.  If you have any questions, remember that we are just a phone call away at 918-940-4630.  Thank you for allowing us to be your chiropractor.

The post What Position Should I Be Sleeping In To Best Benefit Me? first appeared on Chiropractor Broken Arrow.