How To Sleep For A Healthy Neck
When you think about the amount of time you spend sleeping, you realize how important it is to position yourself in the best way possible. Making small adjustments to how you sleep at night can be super helpful in preventing issues such as neck pain. Keep reading to learn how to sleep for a healthy neck!
Sleeping for neck health
In this post, you’ll learn the best way to position your neck while sleeping on your side or sleeping on your back. Sleeping on your side or on your back is the best way to sleep for your neck.
Sleeping on your stomach isn’t the optimal position for your neck to be in for an extended period of time. There’s a part 2 to this post on best ways to sleep for a healthy back so if you’re super set on needing to sleep on your stomach, you’ll be able to find tips on best positioning for stomach sleepers there.
For all of the suggestions listed below on how to sleep for a healthy neck, you’re going to need what’s called a cervical roll. Now I know this is an investment but the one I have cost $25 and I literally have had the same one for about 8 years and it still works perfectly fine. So even though you have to invest some money, it’s going to last you.
This is the cervical roll I use and recommend: McKenzie Cervical Roll
How to sleep for a healthy neck:
Back sleepers
The first option for how to sleep for a healthy neck is to sleep on your back.
When sleeping on your back, you only want to have one pillow and you want to make sure that your pillow isn’t too thick. You don’t want your head to be lifted too high unless you need your head lifted for other health reasons.
Your cervical roll is going to be at the bottom of your pillow as you can see in the picture below. You want to keep this roll pretty low on your pillow and want to place it at the center of your neck. Your head will then fully relax on your pillow. The roll is here to keep the neck in it’s natural position which is called a lordosis.
You can also put the cervical roll in your pillow case along with your pillow and just pull it down to the bottom of the case.
For how you should position your legs when sleeping on your back, click here to learn more in my sleeping for back health post.
Side sleepers
The next option is for those who prefer to sleep on their side.
Because of the larger amount of space between your shoulder and your head, when lying on your side, you’ll either want to use two thin pillows or one thicker pillow.
Like when sleeping on your back, you want to keep the cervical roll very low on your pillow. The cervical roll will be on the side of your neck between the base of your head and your shoulder. Your head will then fully relax on the pillow. See the picture below for a visual demonstration.
Again, you can also put the cervical roll in your pillow case with your pillow and just pull it down to the bottom of the case if you prefer.
For how you should position your legs when sleeping on your side, click here to learn more in my sleeping for back health post.
Now you know how to sleep for a healthy neck! For those interested, I’ll link the cervical roll once more here:
Click here for McKenzie Cervical Roll
Don’t forget to check out part 2 of this series for the best ways to sleep for a healthy back to get a full picture on how to position yourself in the healthiest way possible while sleeping: How To Sleep For A Healthy Back
