Does Sleeping Position Matter?

"Hitting snooze will give you extra meaningful rest." Hitting the snooze bar is one of the worst things you can do. "Sleeping positions don't matter." Now, wrong. Sleeping positions absolutely do matter. "If you snore, you have sleep apnea." This one is critically important to all sleep physicians. There’s a myth about sleep, "It's better to be a morning person than a night owl." 

 We do have in our society both night owls and larks. There's no question about that. Both of them do very well in terms of their own personal livelihood. The difference is that, for personal happiness, to be a morning person, because of the way society is structured, they tend to do much better. We have sayings like "the early bird gets the worm," and unfortunately that's to the detriment, often, of evening people. They really live in a morning person's world and often are forced to work on a morning person's schedule. 

So, what we hope to see happen is that people become aware of the kind of person they are. If you happen to be a morning person, do know that your performance is going to be much better in the morning. If you're an evening person, your performance is going to be much better during the evening hours. "Sleeping positions don't matter." Yes, they matter. Sleeping positions absolutely do matter. We all, believe it or not, spend most of our time in one of three positions. Most people are side sleepers. The next most common is your back, and the least common is sleeping on your stomach. The key thing when it comes to sleeping positions is to make sure that your spinal column is aligned and you are supported over the course of your sleep at night in your preferred position. If you happen to be somebody who has positional sleep apnea, the position at which you sleep does matter, because if you are sleeping in a supine position, it's more difficult for you to breathe, therefore you snore a little louder, and your bed partner may not really appreciate that. Now, pregnancy is a time where your sleeping positions also really matter. 

During pregnancy, the key thing for pregnant people is, you want to be comfortable. In whatever position you take, make sure that you are supported with lots of cozy pillows. 

."Hitting snooze will give you extra meaningful rest."

This is actually a myth. Hitting the snooze bar is one of the worst things you can do, because what you're doing is you're robbing yourself of some of the best sleep. In the second half of the night is when we have most of our rapid-eye-movement sleep, and that's where we get a lot of the benefits cognitively of our sleep. So, if you're hitting your snooze bar one or two or three or, worse, more times, you're interrupting some of that really valuable sleep when it comes to the standpoint of our cognition. Sleep fragmentation is really not good, because it leads to all kinds of psychological problems as well as physical problems.

Instead of hitting the snooze bar, the best thing is to sleep as late as you possibly can. "Napping makes up for lack of sleep at night." The ideal duration for a nap is actually about 20 minutes. 

Now, snoring is one of the most common symptoms of a condition called obstructive sleep apnea, which is life-threatening, but snoring doesn't necessarily mean that you absolutely have this condition. Many people snore and are completely healthy. Essentially, snoring or sleep apnea is really a mechanical problem. That is, because of the excess weight on the upper airway, you put too much pressure on your throat, therefore the airway collapses either fully or partially. Sleep apnea is a very serious problem. Some people can actually die in their sleep. 

So, you really have to understand, if that cardinal symptom of snoring shows up, talk to a physician to make sure that you don't have sleep apnea.

"Insomnia means you can't fall asleep." It's partly true, partly not so true. If you happen to be somebody who can't fall asleep fast enough, then you have what we call sleep-onset insomnia, which is true.

The hallmark of a healthy sleeper is actually what we call sleep latency, or the time it takes you to fall asleep of about 15 or 20 minutes. If you're falling asleep right away, it generally is a sign that you're not getting enough sleep.

A good sleeper really is a person who can function throughout the day, not fall asleep under inappropriate circumstances.

"More sleep is always better." Now, this is a myth. More sleep is not always better, because in addition to getting sufficient duration, when it comes to sleep, consistency is critical.

Those sleep myths we talked about, maybe there were more, but these were the ones that were counterproductive to our health and well-being.