Sleep should be healthy and restful.
However, we often still do not wake up feeling refreshed or healthy in the morning – often due to severe pain in the shoulder.
This situation can be exasperating for anyone, but even more so if you are an athlete. It impinges on your performance, stamina, mood and more. Because of shoulder pain, you will not be able to follow your usual sport’s regimen due to the discomfort.
And something as simple as adjusting your sleeping position can work wonders in alleviating the agony. In the following words we will take a look at what causes shoulder pain in the bed and work out the best sleeping position if you are an athlete – hopefully, you will be back up and running again in no time.
What is the cause of shoulder pain after waking up?
The complaints can be entirely different:
- Sometimes they rob sleep and do not disappear throughout the entire day.
- The reasons for this can be manifold – and depending on the type you need to resort to other measures.
In essence, you can divide the causes of nocturnal shoulder pain as follows:
- Pain from a wrong mattress
- Pain from untrained arms
Suffering from the wrong sleeping position
- Discomfort caused by too much mattress pressure
- The shoulder is not adequately cushioned
The wrong habits – e.g., lack of exercise (not your problem as sportsmen) or your sleeping position – lead to permanent tension in the shoulder area.
If you create such complaints yourself, then this happens unknowingly and above all unintentionally.
The good news: What you train yourself, you can un-train
How to tame shoulder pain while sleeping
The discomfort is mostly the cause of the wrong sleeping position – In many cases, you are a side sleeper with shoulder agony.
In doing so, you constrict your back additionally by pulling up your legs to the stomach often causing pain in the shoulder area due to increased pressure on the mattress. Usually, this also brings on daytime tiredness and lack of energy – a disaster for any athlete.
How to train away the shoulder pain
Sleeping on your back is the healthiest. In the side position, the load on the shoulders is often greatest. The stomach position relieves the shoulders but hinders the breathing.
If you suffer from shoulder pain, you should think about changing the sleeping position.
Of course, you can also try to improve the side position with the right pillow first. There are even special side sleeper cushions that support the body during the night and mitigate strain.
If you have a shoulder pain – sleep on your back or sleep (temporarily) on the stomach!
Our body is a complicated machine. It contains bones, joints with their soft masses, muscles, and tendons.
Just be aware if you switch to sleeping on your back and you place your arms under your head, it can easily result in shoulder pain. Instead, just put your arms sideways along your body. Even in the case of the side position, the arrangement of the arms plays a decisive role: optimally, the curvature of the spine is supported, if you direct your arms straight down or up. The pressure can be distributed evenly so that the ligaments, tendons, and joints can relax. However, if your body weight is resting on one arm, the jammed nerves can cause pain
Pain from a wrong mattress
Just as important as the right pillow and position are the rest of the bed:
Intense shoulder pain after sleeping is often enough due to the wrong mattress. The shoulder is the most flexible joint in the human body and therefore very sensitive. Hardiness alone does not make a good mattress.
Invest in the right mattress and even more so as an athlete – you wouldn’t skimp on your sporting equipment, would you?