Lots of people are suffering from shoulder pain in their lifetime, especially whose work includes laboring job or housekeeping things. In general practice, incidence rates of shoulder pain is reported from 11 to 29 per 1000 patient years in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands [1]. The etiology of shoulder pain varies and needs to be diagnosed by a physician. The simplest classification divides into acute or chronic problem. The treatments according to different problems are never the same. But they may all have a serious issue of sleeping at night.
The reason that sleeping issue is so important to everyone is that you can get a good body condition and a better environment to heal yourself through a deep and well sleeping. During you are sleeping overnight, your body is starting to heal some micro-trauma in your musculoskeletal system you just got from work or in your daily use. You can also regain the energy and be in a good emotion to deal with the tasks in the next day.
Once you got a shoulder pain for a while, you may notice that you are waking several times during your sleeping. The reasons cause this problem may be:
So, if you are awake with shoulder pain in the night, the healing procedure is interrupted at the moment. You may be in a bad mood in the morning because of poor sleeping quality. This condition just goes into vicious cycle.
The first goal to deal with this problem is to decrease the frequency of waking up. For example, in the beginning you will wake up 5 times in a night. We can say that you are in a better and progressing situation if the waking frequency decreases into 3 times in a night. You can try the following tips to gain a better situation.
In a healthy shoulder, it is always fine to sleep on it. But when you have a shoulder problem, no matter the cause is from bursa, tendon or other tissue, this sleeping posture is not suggested. In this position, your shoulder will be pressed for hours and the space of shoulder joint becomes small. The inside tissue will send a warning message by waking you up.
The suggested sleeping posture will be 2 positions. One is sleeping with facing up, and the other one is sleeping on non-affected side.
There is a thickness of your trunk. When you try to sleep with facing up, put a pillow that is at the same height as your trunk or just a bit higher than your trunk under your arm and shoulder. This pillow will provide a fine support and prevent your shoulder muscle from over-stretching. You can put your hand either on your belly or on the pillow with elbow straight.
The other way is sleeping on the non-affected shoulder. You can hold a pillow with the painful shoulder on the top. Again, this position protects shoulder tissue from over-stretching and causing pain. The arm should not be hanged in front of your chest.
The suggested sleeping position is helping you to find the most comfortable position to sleep overnight. Sleeping longer without interruption means you have a deeper and better sleeping quality.
Before you go to sleep, you can try some simple tips to help relaxing the muscles of your shoulder.
Try to have a heat pad on your shoulder and neck for 15-20 minutes before your go to bed. The heat can reduce the stiffness in your joints, enhance blood circulation throughout your neck and shoulder, prevent low-intensity inflammation and improve your comfort levels. You can choose a dry heating pad, which is more convenient and easy to use.
There are a few muscles are going to be tight when tissues around the shoulder get injured. Therefore, you can rub the tight muscles to make them soft and tender. One area needs to be massaged is the back of the shoulder blade. Another area is rotator cuff area.
When you are working on the tight muscle, you may feel some soreness and pain. You will have no idea that these areas are so sore until you start to do the massage. During the massage, you can feel that the pain is a kind of good pain, which is alike the feeling you get a nice massage.
Try to work on maintaining a good posture for 3-5 minutes. The muscles always are being strained in an abnormal posture. They finally become weak and tight. Therefore, being in a good posture is so important to everyone, even those people who do not have shoulder problem yet. The muscles will re-align into the length they are supposed to be. Here are some tips to do: sitting straight with chin-in and shoulders draw back.
The sleeping problem bothers lots of people who have shoulder pain, although they have different tissue injured, they may have the same sleeping issue. During the recovering period of the shoulder problem, you may gain some benefits from little adjustment of your sleeping position. And you must do something to help your shoulder become healthy. Always consult a physician or a physiotherapist before your problem is too severe to treat.
We aspire for better health for our readers, liberate them from their painful episodes, and empower them to pursue their goals and aspirations, and future endeavours pain-free.