pain and improve your sleep quality and quantity.

We're going to cover everything with this. I've got three great tips to help you to fall asleep faster and with less pain. And then we're going to talk about different sleep, postures and position s, how you can sleep comfortably so that you sleep better through the night and so that you wake up with less discomfort.

Those are the benefits that I hope that you get from this video. I hope this really helps you out. First tip is coming at you right now.

First things first, I need you to answer a very simple question for me. How old is your mattress? Now be honest, because most mattresses last for about six to ten years. If yours is older than that, if it's outside of those dates, it might be time for an upgrade.

Your mattress might not be providing your body with the support that it needs to get a good restful and pain free night's sleep. This is especially true if you wake up with pain or wake up to pain in the morning. Assuming that you're sleeping six to 8 hours a day, that is a quarter to a third of your life that you're spending on your mattress.

Certainly an investment worth making. Tip number two is one that you're going to love. I know it's one of my personal favorites.

It's a heating pad. Put some heat on your back for about ten to 15 minutes at night before you fall asleep. This is a great way to promote relaxation in your muscles and to decrease soreness and stiffness in your back.

It's also a great way to increase blood flow into that area to help healing to occur. And so again, just lay on a heating pad for about ten to 15 minutes before you fall asleep. This is one of my favorites.

I've got it linked in the description down below if you're interested in checking this out. And then tip number three is just some gentle stretching right before you fall asleep. This is another great way to increase relaxation and decrease pain in your back.

The two stretches that I love the most for this are the it's a lumbar rotation stretch. You're going to lay on your back with both your knees bent and then just drop both knees over here to the side until we get a good comfortable stretch right here in your lower back. Hold that one for about 20 to 30 seconds and then we're going to go the other way and do the same thing.

About 20 to 30 seconds both ways. And then you're going to repeat that one three times. I like that one because you can do that one right in bed or on the floor right beside your bed.

Really great stretch. The other one that I like to, again, just promote relaxation in your back right before bed is going to be a prayer stretch or a child's pose. You're going to go down on all fours.

Keep your hands right up here in front of you and then just sit right down onto your heels. And then you're going to go into this position just until we get a good comfortable stretch right through your lower back and right through your hips. You're going to hold that for about 20 seconds and then repeat that one three times.

Those are two of my favorite stretches. Again, just to promote some relaxation and decrease pain right before you fall asleep. Now, if you want to sleep better through the night, and if you don't want your pain to wake you up, and if you want to wake up with decreased pain in the morning, in my opinion, these last three tips are the most important.

We're going to talk about different sleep positions and postures. We're going to talk about the three different positions that human beings sleep in. I want to give you some tips and advice on how to enhance all of those.

But before we jump right into that, I just need to tell you real quick what is a neutral spine position? Because our goal is to sleep in as neutral a position as possible. That simply means that we're not extended backwards through our spine or folded forward. We're not side bending.

We're not leaning one way or the other, and we're not rotating through our spine. If we can keep it just in a nice neutral alignment in all three of those dimensions, you're going to sleep better through the night. You're going to wake up with less pain.

And so that being said, let's jump into my least favorite sleeping position. But I know a lot of you out there, like this one that is sleeping on your stomach. Now, the reason why I don't like sleeping on your stomach is because it's impossible to maintain that neutral spine position, especially in your upper back and neck.

You have to rotate your head one way or the other in order to sleep on your stomach. It's just not a great position for your neck and upper back to sleep in. Now, when we're talking about your lower back, what it does is typically extends your back or extends your spine through your lower back.

Kind of creates this sway back posture that a lot of people don't tolerate that well. Now, how we fix that is just with a bunch of pillows. So here's the tips that I would give you.

We're going to grab two pillows. I'm going to put one right under my hips, and then I want to put the other one underneath my shins. And so now you'll see that as I sleep in this position.

I've got the pillow underneath my hips that's keeping my back in a more neutral position. It's not that significant arch that you would get otherwise. And then the other thing is I've got this pillow here underneath my shins.

When I put the pillow under my shins, what that does is unlocks my knees and unlocks my hamstrings. And there's less pull right up here on your pelvis. And it's just a much better position to keep your lower back in.

Again, not my favorite for your upper back and neck. But if we're addressing specifically the lower back, those are the two things that I would have you do. Okay, the next position that I personally like, this is my go to sleep position, would be for you side sleepers.

But again, as we talk about maintaining a neutral spine, oftentimes what happens is the pull of our pelvis and the position of our legs causes our back to fall out of alignment. The easiest thing that you can do for that is one pillow right here in between your knees. And you'll see what that does is just keeps my legs and my hips in a much better position so that it's not pulling on my spine.

So I'm maintaining that neutral spine. I'm not side bending one direction or the other. Most often this one you're going to sink in this way.

This really helps. The other thing that you can do, and again, I know that I'm throwing a ton of pillows at you guys. The other thing that you can do is kind of fill this cavity right here in your side.

And so if you get a small pillow, this one's probably a little bit too big. But if you put a small pillow right here in your back, you'll see that that's going to hold me in even a better position and kind of support my spine from the bottom in this direction. So those are two things that might help you out.

Those are two things that you might consider with the side sleeping position. And then finally, as far as lower back pain is concerned, this is probably my favorite position just because this is the easiest to support your spine fully and to stay in a good sleep position. This is sleeping on your back.

However, if we sleep flat on our back like this, you'll see that usually there's a pretty big arch underneath my back. It's that sway back posture. Again, that's because when my legs are extended out straight, my hip flexors are pulling on my pelvis and pulling it into this position.

Fortunately, there's a really easy fix for that. Usually I would go one pillow. Usually I'd recommend two pillows.

One pillow is good. In my opinion, two pillows is even a little bit better. Put those right underneath the knees.

And now what you'll see is that unlocks my hip flexors. And so I've got a slight bend in my knees, and it enables me to put my spine in a much more neutral and much healthier position. So if you're a back sleeper, try that out, put one or even two pillows underneath your back and enjoy a better night's sleep.

Now, with lower back pain, I always recommend stretching. I always recommend strengthening.