Sleeping on your back or on your side, which is better for your health?

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To know whether sleeping on your side is good or bad, you need to determine whether that sleeping position is suitable for you or not. Let's compare the two basic sleeping positions, lying on your side and lying on your back, to get the right answer.

Side lying

Advantage:

- Prevents back or neck fatigue: This position follows the natural curve of the spine, so it will help your body stay in the most comfortable position while improving blood circulation.

- Limit snoring: If you pay attention, you will see that people who snore often lie straight. This is explained because when lying on your back, the tongue and palate become soft and pressed down to the back of the throat, blocking the airway and causing snoring. Therefore, the side-lying position is quite good for limiting snoring.

- Reduces headache symptoms and the risk of neurological diseases (memory) such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

- Suitable for people with digestive problems, especially heartburn because the pressure on the throat and stomach when lying on the side is significantly reduced.

If you have high blood pressure, it is best to lie on your right side and avoid lying on your left side, which increases pressure on the heart.

"Heartburn symptoms are often worse at night. When you lie on your left side, your internal organs are properly arranged to significantly reduce the amount of acid that leaks out of your stomach into your esophagus, which causes the pain associated with heartburn," said Dr. Matthew Noble of Stony Brook University (USA).

Side sleeping is considered to have many advantages.

Disadvantages:

- If you maintain a side-lying position for a long time while sleeping, you will experience hip pain due to pressure on only one side.

- Face has wrinkles and is easily swollen on one side in the morning after waking up.

- Makes breasts sag and lose firmness. Because the ligaments cannot effectively support breast lift when you lie on one side.

- Increased risk of nightmares if lying on the left side: According to the results of a study by Turkish scientists published in the journal Sleep and Hypnosis, 40.9% of people who have the habit of sleeping on their left side often have nightmares, while only 14.6% of people who sleep on their right side feel the same way.

Lie on your back

Advantage:

- Good for people with spinal and joint diseases: "By far, this is the best choice for most people, the supine position helps your head, neck and spine lie on a straight axis and not under any pressure, so you almost do not feel pain after waking up," according to the US National Health Care Organization.

- Limits the appearance of wrinkles and slows down the aging process of facial skin: because at this time the facial skin is in the most balanced position.

Disadvantages:

- Not good for people with blood pressure problems or runny nose.

If you still want to sleep on your back when you have a runny nose, you should raise your head higher than the height of your usual pillow.

- Snoring frequency doubled and risk of sleep apnea increased.

To reduce snoring when lying on your back, you should place a small pillow on top of the pillow you usually sleep on to help bring your airway back into the correct position. This will help prevent snoring effectively.

In addition to lying on your back or side, the world's population also has many other sleeping positions such as the fetal position, lying on your stomach...