7 Tips To Get Blissful Sleep If You Suffer From Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

In this video I am going to show you seven

tips

to

sleep

well if you

suffer

from

lumbar

spinal

stenosis

. One study found that more than 60% of people who

suffer

from

lumbar

spinal

stenosis

have problems with the quality of their

sleep

, as well as the amount of sleep they get. Due to irritation of the nerves in the lower back, that translates to irritation of the nerves in the legs. Getting better sleep should be a priority for someone suffering from a stenosis problem. After all, you should sleep about eight hours a day. If you can modify a few things with your sleep so you can get the best sleep possible, you can start to help your lumbar spinal stenosis problem so it can get better.

Typically, healthcare professionals focus on what medications, injections, and surgeries you should perform for your stricture problem. But how about taking a good look at your sleep, that could start to make a difference in turning the tide on your stenosis problem and making you feel better. And the number one tip is to sleep in a recliner. When you are in a slightly curved position with your back when you are leaning this way, your hips are bent, they are not, you do not have to be perfectly flat, like when you lie on your back in that curved position. position with knees and hips bent.

So to demonstrate it, it's something like this, like you lie down or sit in a recliner. And I bent your knees a little so that your legs could be straighter but with a slight curvature. That position tends to be the most comfortable for someone who suffers from lumbar spinal stenosis problems. As a result of that. If you haven't thought about trying to sleep in your recliner, you can give it a try. Many times we receive here in the clinic people with lumbar spinal stenosis who already tell us that they are sleeping in the recliner, because it is more comfortable than their bed.

They have been having trouble sleeping at night and go to the recliner to relax anyway and just fall asleep there and take naps in the middle of the day. So they just sit there at night. What I encourage you to do is try to get as much sleep as you can at night in the recliner. And don't turn on the TV because that will keep you awake at night, which will also interfere with the quality of your sleep. So put the remote away, put anything with a screen away from you, your phone, a tablet, a computer, and really get a good quality rest in that recliner so you can allow your nerves to flare and you can tolerate. stand and walk for longer.

Number two, do a gentle stretching routine for lumbar stenosis. Just before you go to bed. Let me show you three quick things you can do. It will take a minute or two at most, you can take longer if you want to enjoy the feeling of the stretch. But actually, you can do this in a couple of minutes. You can sit on the edge of the bed or anywhere you have a chair and simply bring your knee closer to your chest. But before you do that, contract your abs so that you slouch a little, you'll see how my chest and shoulders drop a little every time I slide.

What that does, you can see from the side view of my lower back, it's pushed out. I'm rounding my back instead of arching it. Because in lumbar spinal stenosis, the back muscles, the ones that run up and down the sides of the back, are often stiff and tight. And they are causing a lot of compression in the spine as part of what fuels the stenosis problem. So if you can consistently get those muscles to relax, especially before you go to bed, you may sleep better. So, slouch, but tighten your abs, hold it. Then you're going to bring your knee closer to your chest and just hold your abs and it's a bit of an exercise, but it should be light and hold your knee to your chest.

This will usually come as a relief if you are experiencing symptoms right now. Hold it for 10, 20, 30 seconds and then do it on the other side. You can repeat if you want, doing this once slowly is a good place to start 10, 20, 30 seconds holding your abs and you can't relax and just hold your knee and that might help a little bit, but it really makes a big difference. and you should feel the stretch in your lower back muscles. When you contract your abs. Then do a knee-to-chest move with both knees toward your chest, but you need to lie down for this one.

So it looks like this. Go ahead and get into bed or on the floor wherever you want. Pull both knees in just to keep them here and then tighten those abs. You see, I want to suck my abs, my butt goes up holding the abs to pull your knees and more. Some people cross their feet. Some don't. It doesn't matter. You should stay here for a minute of 30 to 60 seconds. Just keeping your abs tight and doing this here takes a lot of pressure off your lower back. You need to stretch the muscles in your back, which I was talking about and also loosen instead of tension the nerves in your legs to allow them to rest for a moment, again, you can repeat it or You can do it just once, that should already start to feel like it's relieving pressure all over your back and legs.

And the third is a quadruped stretch. So you will get on all fours, on your hands and knees. This is The Quadra's mascot position, because you have four points of contact here. And then you're going to contract your abs again and you're going to sit up like a cat or a dog would and you're just going to stay here and stretch and try to push your lower back up to create a stretching motion, again, 30 seconds. 60 more seconds if desired. And you can repeat if you want. If you do all of this for 30 seconds each, it won't take you more than two minutes to do.

The third is your sleeping position. Let's say you're still lying in your bed instead of the recliner, you don't have a recliner or a comfortable chair you can sit on. But what is the best sleeping position for you, it will be a semi-fetal position. Let me readjust the camera so you can see me. So ideally you need at least two pillows. If you have a body pillow. This works great with the body pillow, grab a pillow for your head, just like that. And the other pillow will be right between your knees. Lie on your side, your favorite side, whichever side you prefer, you can always alternate back and forth.

And you are going to put the pillow between your knees like this, this takes away that tension from the nerves and relaxes them. It's kind of like that knee-to-chest position. But there is one key thing you have to deal with once you are in this position. If you think about that back position, you don't want to stick your butt out, which arches your back; You actually want to tighten your abs, lower your chest and shoulders and adjust the pillows, it's like a fetal position. Then, once you feel comfortable, you may have a very light stretch (almost a dose) a little back and then relax your muscles.

And then you can get really nice and comfortable and go to sleep. Oh, you're so kind. I think I could sleep here too. If you have a body pillow, you can obviously put it over here, it will support your feet, they are quite long. And you can even have it reach your head or, if you prefer, your own pillow. And then the body hugging pillow is also very nice. So having the body pillow going over here with the arms here just as another layer of comfort, I highly recommend that. I have a link in the description below to our favorite body pillow that you can get on Amazon.

Alright, let's go back to this angle. Number four is massaging the back muscles. And I've already been talking about how the muscles in my back are very tight. They are short and compress the spine. That's what contributes to lumbar spinal stenosis, so it makes sense to massage them. I have a massage tool right here. This is our local massage gun. It is a percussion massage gun. And I've reviewed that this is one of my favorite weapons and the one we use here at the clinic all the time. We have a couple different brands but I think this one stands out a little more.

So you would activate that thing and put it on your lower back and just work up and down those muscles in your lower back that are tight and tight. If you can't get here, fine. Ask a family member or friend for help. You can return the favor and do the same. It feels very good. I love working with this. I could be here all day but I have to keep going. All you really need with this is a minute or two. After that, you get diminishing returns in terms of softening the muscle. You can definitely have someone really pressed on your lower back and get a better angle than you would with your hand.

But I've actually seen it just relax for a minute, literally 60 seconds, set a timer, check the watch and you'll feel tremendously more relaxed and your lower back. I did that during that time and I already feel a difference in my back. You can also just do a massage with your own hand, just rub the muscles there, you can ask a family member to rub the muscles there, but getting a device like this definitely saves you a lot of hand fatigue and getting there with extreme movement. . And in my opinion, this works much better. You can really dig in there, get some good angles on the muscle and loosen it up quickly and number five is get a mattress topper for your mattress and you'll rejuvenate your bed.

Having a soft bed makes a big difference for lumbar spinal stenosis because when you are on a softer surface, your spine tends to align better. I say it tends to align because we are all a little different. And not all soft beds are created equal. Some are much softer than others. But if you can't afford to buy a new mattress, that's okay. Just get a mattress topper, it's a fraction of the cost and they are very useful and it feels like you have a brand new mattress once you get it. I would recommend a memory foam one and I don't have one here with me.

I don't have a full bed or the setup to do that. But I have these pillows, which are some of the tools that we have here in the clinic and they have this memory foam material that is very soft, very soft. Typically mattress toppers are a little bit firmer than these, but there are some that are so soft and what it does is it just contours them, so if you push on them, they hold their shape for a while, they conform to the contours. your body and supports you very well. And for people who have lumbar spinal stenosis, I found that everyone recommends sleeping on a softer mattress;

Check out our recommendation in the description below for our favorite mattress topper. Number six is ​​to get an adjustable bed. Now the obvious thing is to get a new mattress, if it's time if it's been 10 years or more, really eight years is what they recommend. Up to you. I don't know if eight years is a thing anymore with the different mattress technologies we have today. But if it's time for you to give me a mattress, give me a mattress. But if you want to go one step further, so that your sleep is the best, getting an articulated bed is another level.

It is the one I am talking about that lifts by tilting the head and tilts the legs and thighs. It's almost like turning your bed into a recliner, those things are phenomenal because you may already have a memory foam mattress, I don't think you can use those with a spring mattress that are too stiff. Therefore, it really helps you contour and relieve pressure from your lower back and relieve your nerves. Those adjustable beds used to be very expensive, and now they're not anymore, you can get one for under $500. Nowadays, depending on the size of your bed.

Of course, I have never seen adjustable beds as cheap as they are today. I have linked in the description one that Amazon makes of all the companies you know, at least the brand name one. And there are many other options available. If you go shopping on Amazon, I'm sure you can go to your local mattress store and find options available. But I think online is probably the way to go, you'll find a lot more options and a lot of reviews, you can always compare with online and offline prices. But in my opinion, that's probably the best thing you can do if you're going to invest a significant amount of money, you know, hundreds, into improving your sleep.

Number seven, treat the root cause of lumbar stenosis. Now, having talked about this in any of the other seven

tips

I gave. And the reason for that is because the other seven or six tips that I gave you are quick relief things. If you buy a new mattress topper or start sleeping with a body pillow or use an adjustable bed, you will notice a quick improvement, but it won't solve the root of the problem. And it may not be long before the stricture gets a little worse. And even though you tried all these tips, after a while they didn't help you.

And the reason is that it doesn't address the root of the problem. It is okay to follow all that advice, but at the same time it is also necessary to address the root of the problem andThat would be solving muscle imbalances. Muscle imbalances are what cause a lumbar stenosis problem. And just to quickly show you the skeleton here in the stenosis, we have the lower back here and these big muscles that go up and down the sides of the lower back. They are usually very developed, rigid and hard. And they don't allow the spine to move very well and they compress all the joints, all the nerves in the disc area and that's what's causing the stenosis problem, it's probably causing arthritis as well, if you've been tested for that. y You may have been told that what counteracts the effect of these back muscles is strengthening the abdominal muscles and also strengthening the gluteal muscles.

We now have a program that we offer. It's called the 28-Day Back Health and Wellness Improvement Program. And that program focuses on treating that root problem that I just mentioned. It will strengthen your abs. Of course you have to do it and glutes focuses on glute exercises and tons of tips from me to guide you through a workout routine for 28 days so you can improve muscle imbalance. That is the root of the problem of lumbar spinal stenosis. I recommend you take a look. We have details about it in the description below. It is the 28-day back health and wellness improvement program.

Hello, I hope this video has been useful to you. I hope you implement these tips. If any of them helped you, please leave a comment. Let us know if he has any other tips that have worked for you and share the wealth of added knowledge here. Maybe we'll make a video about it. Thanks for watching. I'll see you in the next one. Bye