Internet Sources Deception About Best Sleep Positions

Each time we seek for a recommendation in relation to something, many of us use cyberspace sources (articles and websites) to consider our ideal solutions. Consider individual sleeping positions. If you perform a search using a popular search engine using keywords “optimal sleeping postures” or “ideal sleeping positions” or “ideal postures for sleep”, you will learn that up to about 90% of sources suggest that sleeping on one’s back (or supine sleep) is the most effective sleeping position due to minimum stress for a spine. Most of these articles are written by alignment specialists, doctors, nurses, chiropractors, who consider the human body as a mechanical device with pressure, bones, curves, angels, tension.

Even though having genuine purposes in relation to other people, this primitive comprehension of the human organism brings about distressing effects on health of modern-day individuals.

Professional medical study papers have revealed that sleeping on one’s back is the most detrimental sleep position for:
- asthma and allergies,
- stroke in elderly patients,
- health of geriatric inpatients,
- snoring, hypopneas and apneas,
- sleep paralysis and terrifying hallucinations,
- bruxism and clenching episodes,
- sleep apnea,
- health of pregnant women,
- pulmonary tuberculosis treated by thoracoplasty,
- nocturnal asthma,
- back pain in pregnancy,
- irregular or periodic breathing,
- GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease),
- bruxism and swallowing,
- asthma,
- coughing attacks,
- chronic respiratory insufficiency.

For medical abstracts and references related to all these illnesses, visit the link in the resource box below: "Best Sleeping Postures". There are no professional publications that uncovered benefits of sleeping on one’s back for any widespread health concern.

Is there any common concealed mechanism since numerous studies revealed the same harmful consequence for supine sleep for very different health issues? Authors of several professional medical studies found the largest reduction in oxygenation of the arterial blood for sleeping on one’s back in comparison with lateral sleep (left side or right side) and prone sleep (sleeping on the stomach, chest or belly) (Trakada et al, 2003; Fast & Hertz, 1992; Szollosi et al, 2006; Hjalmarsen & Hykkerud, 2008). It is a well-known truth that reduced tissue oxygenation is the key factor that leads to advancement of diabetes, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, asthma, COPD, and virtually any other chronic disease.

Furthermore, scientific studies have clearly uncovered highest mortality rates and most defined acute symptoms during early morning hours (from about 4 to 7 am) for COPD, cerebral ischemia and stroke, coronary spasms, diabetes, epilepsy seizures, inflammatory disorders, asthma, sudden cardiac arrest and deaths and morning sickness. Other health-related publications devoted to circadian variations in several physiological parameters in healthy people also determined that these early morning hours are their most difficult times. For medical references and quotes related to these effects, visit the link below "Morning Heavy Breathing Effect" or watch this YouTube video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vj_8J8BcTi8 "How We Breathe in the Morning".

What is the physiological mechanism? If you observed respiratory movements of people sleeping on their backs, you can discover that they breathe more (e.g., faster and deeper) in comparison with any other sleeping position. For example, snoring is a very common effect present for many individuals only during their supine sleep. Why? This is because our rib cage and tummy are not constrained and can freely move in and out without any [resistance. When we sleep on sides or abdomen, breathing movements are confined. Hence, sleeping on one’s back decreases oxygen content in tissues due to overbreathing or hyperventilation (or breathing more than the tiny medical norm: 10-12 breaths per minute and only 4-6 l/min at rest).

The exact reasons for smaller body oxygenation for overbreathing are following:
1. With tiny normal breathing (only 6 liters per minute; 10-12 tiny breaths per minute), human arterial blood is about 97-98 percent saturated with oxygen. Hence, deep or heavy breathing cannot enhance oxygenation of the arterial blood.
2. Most hyperventilators are chest breathers. Bottom divisions of the lungs do not obtain fresh air quantity with large oxygen content. Consequently, oxygenation of the arterial blood gets less.
3. Overbreathing translates into CO2 deficiency in the blood and body cells and that immediately leads to 2 effects: A) constriction of blood vessels (less blood and oxygen is sent to all vital organs of the human body) and B) suppressed Bohr effect (less oxygen is discharged in tissues by red blood cells since this oxygen release is managed by carbon dioxide). Both these effects LESSEN oxygen and blood supply to cells promoting COPD, epilepsy, stroke, heart disease, obesity, cancer, diabetes, asthma, arthritis and many other common problems.

The process of sleep is not a joke to think about bones only. It is a lethal venom for the chronically ill since millions of patients die every year because of the consequences of sleep, where supine sleep is one of the leading factors.

Therefore, best or ideal sleeping positions must be selected based on best possible personal breath parameters (easier and slower breathing) and maximal body oxygenation results. A specific stress-free breath holding time test is the easiest technique to choose your best individual sleeping postures.