How to Adjust Your Mattress to Relieve Back Pain
Several factors affect how well you can sleep at night. And a good mattress is at the heart of all of these. It gives you support from your neck to your legs. It’s so essential to your body that it can make or break the health of your back.
Whether you have back pain or not, you should ensure that your mattress is in the right shape to support your back.
This article will give tips on getting more out of your mattress and sleep.
Why Does My Back Hurt?
Back pain is usually caused by a slipped disc, pulled muscle, sprained ligament, or inflamed tendon, among other things.
Most of the time, these problems can be traced to poor sitting, standing, and sleeping postures or using bad mattresses that stress the spine.
Simple science explains this.
The intervertebral discs cushion the spine and need time to recover from the day’s stress and prepare for the next day. Most of the time, this occurs during sleep. Poor sleeping posture dehydrates your discs and stresses your back muscles and tendons, causing back pain.
To avoid this, maintain good posture and sleep on back-friendly mattresses.
3 Mattress Hacks to Relieve Back Pain
Make it firmer
“The firmer, the better” is a good rule of thumb for a good mattress for your back. You don’t get as much support as you need when you use a soft, flexible mattress. Conversely, a mattress that is too firm puts undue pressure on the back.
To deal with this, you can fix your mattress in different ways.
For example, you can wrap it in a fitted bedsheet or put sheets of thin plywood between it and the frame.
However, if your mattress is unsalvageable, replacing it with a new, firm, high-density one is the best option for relieving back pain.
Get a supportive bed frame.
If you don’t already have one, now is the time to get a solid bed frame. And if you already have one, but your bed’s slats or springs are old and worn, it’s time to upgrade.
The height of a bed frame is crucially important. It’s less of a strain on the lower back to get out of bed in the morning if the mattress is raised slightly off the floor. It encourages correct posture and relieves stress on the back.
You can also look into adjustable bed frames that help you find the perfect sitting and sleeping positions. This will help reduce the stress on your back and its structures.
Adjust with pillows
Spinal rotation while sleeping is a common cause of back pain. Pillows can be beneficial in keeping your spine in its natural position while you sleep.
This works well if you put a pillow between your knees and draw it closer to your trunk when you sleep on your side. If you like to sleep on your back, putting the pillows under your knees is the way to go.
It is generally recommended to avoid sleeping on your stomach, as it places a great deal of strain on the back. However, place a thin pillow under your head, hips, and lower stomach if necessary.
The combination of a firm mattress and a supportive pillow is beneficial to the neck and lower back.
Conclusion
Shopping for a mattress with the right firmness for your back is the best thing you can do. People who sleep on their backs will prefer medium-firm mattresses because they put less pressure on the back structures than firmer mattresses. Others who like to sleep on their side or stomach will do better on firmer mattresses.
However, it is just as crucial to stick to healthy sleeping positions while in bed. The combination of the two is effective in reducing back discomfort.
