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5 Main Reasons Why Not to Sleep on Your Right Side

Five important reasons why you should not sleep on your right side

sleep position

Sleeping on the belly and the right side of your body has been a long habit for most people. Many research has been fighting against this habit and encouraging sleeping on your back. Here are our 5 top reasons why you shouldn’t sleep on your stomach or the right side.

1- It damages your spine and back.

spine pain
Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

The most important reason to not sleep on your right side is that it causes damage to your spine and scientists have appointed this reason as one of the main reasons for global back pain through generation.

2- It can damage your neck.

good sleep position
Photo by Darina Belonogova from Pexels

Of course, wrong positioning can cause damage to the entirety of your spine including your neck, since nowadays most people use electronic devices that can put a lot of pressure on your neck and spine which can accelerate the damage. Sleeping on your right side can cause long-term damage to your neck bones and structure.

3- It can cause heartburn and put pressure on your chest and belly.

© BruceBlaus / Wikimedia Commons

Of course, sleeping on your belly can put a lot of pressure on your belly and your chest and most people suffer from gastric reflux ( Heartburn ) that is caused by sleeping on your right side.

4- It can cause wrinkles, acne, and jaw deficiency.

acne
Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

When you sleep on your right side your facial skin will be pressurized and this can cause wrinkles in the long term. Also sleeping on your right side means you put your facial skin directly on your pillow which can accumulate bacteria and other microbes over time that can cause skin infections and acne. Plus sleeping on your right side can put a lot of pressure on your facial bones, especially your jawbones which can cause jaw bone damage in long term.

5- Sleeping on your right side or your belly can put pressure on your baby.

good position for pregnant women
Photo by Yan Krukov from Pexels

Pregnant women are more prone to the belly or right side sleep because sleeping on the right side of your belly can put pressure on your baby and possibly cause unfortunate consequences.

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Written by Shko Faraj Agha

Adventures Pharmacist, Tech Influencer, Entrepreneur

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52 Comments

  1. This may be the most ridiculous post I’ve seen in years. Normal people shift themselves from one sleeping position to another all night long. Please don’t cause people to be concerned about nonsense non facts. There isn’t any reason to be a spammer which is what you’ve done.

  2. Good thing I sleep in the tub. Best naps ever and my tub is deep enough I can float a bit….of course the health issues /body injury resulting from tub naps is mostly just the one….ya know ….drowning. ima risk taker and a bubble bath Playa ,yo! Lmao….seriously though…love my tub more than dudes love trucks….or fast cars …or grilling meat or whatever fellas like to do when they are left unsupervised….

  3. That’s rubbish I sleep on my right side first and am perfectly fine, I try sleeping on my back too but cant do so for long and I also change over to my left side and dont have a problem either. U should sleep on any side u feel comfortable with!!!

  4. Bull…There’s some evidence that sleeping on your left side may shift your heart and disrupt your heart’s electrical current. Also, many people with heart failure report having trouble breathing in this position. Sleeping on your back can worsen sleep apnea and snoring.and I’m one of them.

  5. This is one sided review. My Internist told me to sleep on my RIGHT side because it allows the stomach to empty faster with gravity…The left side makes stomach contents overcome gravity to empty and therefore causes more acid reflux! Back is not an option for those of us with back issues.

  6. Completely false info. The correct way to sleep is with a flat pillow or none at all & if sleeping on your side, put a pillow or memory foam pad between your legs at the knee area, but higher up towards the thigh. Also, a body pillow behind you when sleeping on your side is an added plus. Sleeping on your back causes more pain!!!!! Whenever I have somehow managed to get on my back when sleeping, I can barely lift my upper body to get out of bed & am in excruciating pain & feel like an elephant was standing on my back. I am a massage therapist & I regularly get adjustments from our chiropractor and he said this info is WRONG!!!!

  7. And sleeping on Your belly may cause face puffiness and under-eye bags (due to gathering fluids) and facial skin problems (due to above-mentioned accumulation of bacteria).
    Sleeping on Your belly or either side may cause wrinkles, if Your skin is prone to wrinkles and You’re not giving it extras (by balanced nutrional food and/or topically applied ‘treats’) to postpone skin’s inevitable aging process, which is different for all, but as said inevitable.

    Also, any sleeping position might cause problems with spine if the bed and pillows are not suitable for Your body.

  8. For pregnant women, sleeping on Your back is not recommended during second and third trimester because it puts too much pressure on Your back, intestines and vena cava (the main vein which carries back blood to Your heart from lower body). But it doesn’t mean, You can’t sleep on Your back at all, just need to limit it.
    Also, sleeping on Your left side is more recommended for pregnant women, because it allows the bloodflow to the placenta (and the baby) and to Your own kidneys be better, which helps carry more nutrional elements and oxygen to Your baby and, thanks to more efficiently working kidneys, carry more wastes and toxins out of Your body. (The vena cava is a bit to the right from the center and so are the renal veins’ entrypoints.)
    And without the extra pressure and with better venous bloodflow, there’s also an even smaller change to get venous thrombus (bloodflow blockage), of which pregnant women are by nature in higher risk of getting (doesn’t mean all pregnant women get it, but if You can minimize the risk, then why not, right?).

    • When I was pregnant years ago, I started sleeping with a pillow between my knees. Someone had told me that it aligns my back (more with my body laying on my side) and it was great! I eventually started using a (full length) body pillow. I did this with both of my pregnancies and my boys are now 34 and 31 years old! I hug the top part of the pillow and the bottom half is either between my legs/knees or has one leg flopped over it. Give this a try and see if it works for you…I never leave home on a trip without my pillow!! Hope this suggestion helps! 🙂

    • Because of reflux etc I suspect, the human body is a bit too complicated for us to fathom, sleeping on your right side puts pressure on a baby if you are pregnant and reflux can be quite painful. The ideal is sleep on your back or if you must sleep on your side sleep on your left side. I thought I read a while ago sleeping on left side can cause pressure on heart, they seem to keep coming up with new stuff though

  9. My son would never allow me to sleep on my right side when I was pregnant with him. He didn’t like it when I got up in the middle of the night to pee or bend over either. I heard about that!

    • When I was pregnant with my twins I couldn’t sleep on either side bc one of them was always kicking up at whoever was above them so I ended sleeping in my (then) husband’s recliner chair most of the time. It was the only way I could get any sleep as well as taking pressure off my hips, too. The twins are now 21 BTW. 😉

  10. With the reasons mentioned above I think sleeping in either position can damage to the part in direct contact with the bed irrespective of either right, left or supine
    Because any part in contact with the bed will definitely be pressurise.