sleep on my back

there are a bunch of reasons i dethere are a bunch of reasons i decided i want to do this. the main reason was because sleeping on my stomach/side often made my neck and joints sore. another reason was because i don’t want wrinkles from putting pressure on my face all night. intially, it was really hard to sleep on my back. i wasn’t getting into that ‘zone’ where my consciousness starts to drift before falling asleep. however, i persisted, and i think i can almost say i’ve completed this goal. i only sleep on one pillow, so what i did was lay my normal pillow over a second pillow i placed longways along on the side of my mattress. this created a little hill at the overlap that i could lean my head against when sleeping on my back. being able to lean my head a little has definitely helped me fall asleep. however, i think i’ll be able to wean myself off the second pillow soon.
i can also say that i don’t wake up sore anymore and i think i get better quality sleep with this new sleeping position.

Sleeping on my side has caused all kinds of problms. I was habitually a right side sleeper and I did something strange with my hands and elbows as well and bent them and this was a big factor for cubital tunnel syndrome. I immobilized the elbow and tried to be a bit more mindful of my sleeping postion. But I soon reverted back to strange sleeping positions, though some of the things I did were new. I eventually started sleeping on my left side and slept with the neck, twisted, often to the right. My contorted sleeping positions definitely seem like a big factor for TOS. Ever since I was diagnosed, and even before that, I started to become way more concious of my sleeping position and my pillows positioned properly and all that. My issue was that in my sleep I move around and often wake up twised or sleeping on one side or another, and consequently, I’d wake up hurting or numb. I consider it progress if I wake up on my back with only my neck turned but ideally I’d be able to fall asleep and stay in a good position. My accupuncturist said that sleeping on one’s side is often done for emotional comfort and that I need to retrain my heart as well as my mind and body to sleep on my back. I’m not sure how I would go about the emotional factor though retraining myself in these ways does sound like a great idea. I have a hard time falling asleep on my back too and that emotional comfort reason may very well be a factor.

Another habit I need to break is falling asleep carelessly with my light on and often with stuff on my bed, and position badly. This only happens when I’m exhausted but still…I just need to retrain myself to sleep on my back and little slip ups like this make the progress slower.

Last night I had a mindset to sleep on my back and fell asleep like that and woke up with only my neck twisted to the right.

I think I figured out the secret for me. I have to wear socks so that my feet are warm. If my feet are warm then I won’t be curling up into a little ball on my side to be warm. And if I’m not on my side, I won’t be mashing the side of my face against the pillow.

It’s all about vanity. I admit it. I want to see a serene face in the mirror when I wake up.

^{Good Mornin’, you beautiful serene face!}

I’ve started waking up with numb arms and fingers, which I’m 99% certain is from the way I sleep, on my stomach. I have a hard time relaxing into sleep on my back, but I think it’s time to get over it, before I have to go to the doctor for this!