It's the Drugs Talkin'. Why the position you sleep in matters but really shouldn’t. (Part Five: 3 minute read)

Continuing our conversation about why your sleeping position may be causing you pain (but really shouldn’t), we will look at sleeping drugs.

When people sleep under the influence of sedative-hypnotics, barbiturates, benzodiazepines like Xanax, non-benzodiazepine hypnotics and/or “z-drugs,” they don’t move a lot.

We need to move at least a little while we sleep. As we described in the first part of this blog (link), if we are still for even 15 minutes, fibroblasts (the cells that make connective tissue) begin laying down tiny fibrils of fascia. We compared those cells to snails leaving trails of supportive fibers. When we move, those fibrils are stretched, dissolved or organized.

Yawny-waking-stretches (pandiculation) in the AM definitely help release some of the “unnecesary” connections we’ve formed in our sleep. Moving into different positions at night- positions that put parts that were compressed under tension or stretch- would also help balance this process. It’s a harmless process if we balance our non-moving moments with moments of stretching, lengthening, moving. But sleeping in one position for most of the night, night after night, gives fibroblasts opportunity to “densify” areas we have kept still for many hours. Because sleeping drugs can cause a person to stay too still while they sleep, stiffness sets in.

Sleeping drugs can also dull our responses to uncomfortable sensations. So, while we sleep, we may show some shape bias that is actually hurting us. For example, let’s say, while under the influence of sleeping drugs you fall asleep on your back and stay there for most of the night. Your head nods to the left, taking your left ear toward your left shoulder. Your neck stays flexed, bringing your chin closer to your chest. Since you’re drugged up, you are completely unbothered by a position you would never choose to hang out in if you were even slightly more aware of the sensations that come with that pose. If your waking life does not provide ample occasions to hydrate and unstick this stuck tissue that becomes velcroed®, your preferred slumbering shape could cause you pain when you are not asleep.

So far we have given four reasons your sleeping position could be causing you pain; four reasons it may be helpful to check our do’s and don’t sleeping position list.

Reason number one: The body hugs the lesion
Reason number two: The process of pain sensitization
Reason number three: Your Salience Network gets a jolt
Reason number four: Sleeping under the influence of sleeping drugs

We’ll look at one more reason your sleeping position matters and then launch into a discussion about more “natural” ways to position ourselves for sleep. Click here to learn more!