Proper Sleep Posture for Overall Wellness | Access Health

(techno music)- How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Well if you're like nearlyone third of adult Americans, the answer is not enough.

And about 27% of us reporthaving trouble falling and staying asleep most nights.

There have been studiescorrelating inefficient sleep with improper sleepalignment or sleep posture.

And research has shown thatcontinuous shortages of sleep can contribute todepression, to heart disease, to obesity, and eventype two diabetes.

Well joining us todayto help us understand more about theimportance of sleep and how proper sleepposture can affect your overall wellness ischiropractor Doctor Gerry.

Doctor, I'm so gladyou're here with us today! – Thank you forhaving me here today.

– So this is importantstuff, doctor Gerry.

What is proper sleep posture? – Firstly, we have to havea normal lordotic curve of the neck.

And if it's not, thenwe have problems.

– Uh oh.

– And the problems arestiff muscles in the neck, pain, and poor sleep.

– Yeah, I don'twant any of that.

So how do we achieve thisproper sleep posture? – The best way is to sleep onyour back and on your sides.

– No stomach sleeping.

– Never on your stomach.

'Cause when you'reon your stomach, your neck has to turnone way or the other and that is verybad for the neck.

– Now okay, so you'resaying that if you sleep on your back and your side, then you definitely have proper sleep posture? – No.

– No (laughs) no.

– Let's look at that here.

– Dierdra's— You're failing, Dierdra! – She's here andshe's lying flat, but there's no integrityto this pillow.

It's just flat.

– [Ereka] Oh no.

– So the lordosis is goneand it's flattened the neck, and she's alreadydealing with that every day throughout the day.

– And I'm tellingyou most people, I know this is thepillow that I have.

So we're already settingourselves up for failure.

– So for yearsI've told patients Go home, lie in your bed, lie on the end of the bed, let your neck hang off of thebed to improve the lordosis.

Or buy a cervical roll andplace the cervical roll in the pillow.

– There, now she'sgot it kinda, yeah.

– The problem is, there'sstill not integrity and if she moves, this is notgonna be in a good position.

– That would never work forme because I move all night, so this would be rollingback and forth for sure.

– Correct, andturning side to side is not really idealwith this sort of thing.

– [Ereka] So I have a feelingyou have a better option.

– Well, we do.

– (laughs) Good.

– So.

Right here is a pillow.

Go ahead, lay back right there.

And this is theComfortAdjust Pillow.

– It feels great! – Feel it.

Okay.

And it's made outof memory foam, and that same coreis inside this pillow in the front part of the pillow.

– So this is genius, soyou're saying that core that you pulled out a secondago is in this pillow.

– It's already in here.

Unzip that over there.

– Alright, this, take a look.

Alright.

So this is the soft side, and then I can quickly turn if I want it, my husband would probably want it a little bit firmer, and it goes right back in just like that.

Awesome, okay.

– Now, here's thebeautiful thing.

You have a hybrid sleeper, so lie on your back first, Dierdra.

– This is who I am, by the way.

I sleep on my back andsometimes on my side.

– Now, roll to this side.

So, she can come andlie on this portion or that portion onthe side posture.

But when you're lying on yourback, there's a mesh here and your head is cradled.

Go back to the center, and your head is cradled with great integrityand improving the lordosis of the neckthroughout the day that we're losing.

– And what is all of this? Is this what I think it is? – That's memory foam.

– This is fabulous.

– Memory foam, okay? Now, somebody thatwants to sleep on their side all night long? Get up for a second.

– Which is, by the way, when we're pregnant we're told that we haveto sleep on our side all the time.

– Absolutely, you can't sleepon your stomach.

Okay, so now she cansleep, she can roll from one side to the otherand it's not a problem.

And it maintains theintegrity of the spine.

– Incredible, this is amazing.

So now that we've gotthe ComfortAdjust Pillow, tell us how this willimprove overall wellness.

– Okay, so if yousleep well at night, you're gonna wake up energized, you're gonna function better, your muscles are gonnabe relaxed, everything is gonna reset.

The cervical spine will resetfrom all the daily activities from the prior day.

– And not to mention I'llbe a whole lot less grumpy.

– Correct, and itmakes correction with what we call tech neck.

– Tell me about tech neck, because I've heard this a lot but I don't think everybodyknows what tech neck is.

– Okay, so for every inchyour head translates forward, it's 10 pounds of pressure.

So if you go all the way down.

.

.

– Yeah.

– [Gerry] That's 60 poundspressure on your neck.

– And all day long, what are we doing? We're looking at our phones.

– Cell phones, laptops, computers, it affects everybody.

– And so does thishelp us reset it? – Absolutely.

When you go to sleep, andshe's sleeping on her side.

When you sleep onthe back or the side, it's helping with the lordosis, the banana curve of the neck, maintain it.

– So you get all night tosort of reset your body.

– [Gerry] And it resets it.

– That's so genius.

– That's exactly right.

– One pillow does all of that.

It's incredible how much thoughthas gone into this pillow.

– Absolutely, I wish Iwould have thought of it.

– I bet you do.

To find out more aboutthe ComfortAdjust Pillow, visit comfortadjustpillow.

com.

Great stuff Gerry, thank you so much and of course you can findeverything you see here today on our website ataccesshealth.

tv and don't forget to followus on Facebook and Twitter.

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