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Find out how to stop those bedtime backaches
It's dawn on
Monday and you're doing the usual early morning crawl out of bed. Your
neck hurts and your lower back feels like a mule kicked it.
And what's that lurking at the back of your head? Are you detecting
traces of a hangover from that Saturday night party? Well, there's not
much I can do to help you with the hangover except a little advice on
moderation. However, that neck ache and overly aggressive mule can be
tamed with a little practical advice.
To be blunt, the most dangerous place in your bedroom is the bed.
What do you actually do in your bed besides sleeping, if you're like
most you read, watch television, study, work and eat. And most of these
activities do more harm than good to your back.
Your spine is made up of three curves. You can feel them as a hollow
area at the back of your neck, lower back, and a slight roundness of
the upper back. Maintaining these three natural curves while working
and resting would save many people a lot of pain, lost productivity and
health-care costs.
When you use your bed for reading, watching television, etc., you
probably get comfortable by propping yourself up with pillows. This
often violates the rule of maintaining a neutral spinal alignment. The
hollow in your lower back is now reversed into rounding, the roundness
of your upper back is more accentuated, your shoulders are hunched
forward and your head is significantly in front of the shoulders
(probably pushed forward by the pillows).
Why should you care about this positioning? Once again very
basically and bluntly, if bad positioning is maintained over an
extended period of time, it puts strain on your muscles, ligaments and
joints. Strain can develop into inflammation, pain and permanent
changes (and they're not pretty). Subsequently, the a.m. blues set in,
and pretty quickly.
So how should you use your bed for watching television? However, if
you can't break the habit, then moderate the damage by getting up every
30 minutes and frequently rearranging your pillows. Finally, improve
the ergonomics of your set-up:
Your back should be on a gradual incline.
Your lower back hollow should be maintained with a lumbar pillow.
Put a pillow under your knees to keep them bent.
Your head should rest back on a pillow so it can fall back past your
shoulders and allow the neck to maintain its natural hollows.
Mieke Scripps MPT, DPT
is an orthopedic physical therapist for the Miami City Ballet. She
is also founder of Mieke Mends a physical therapy consulting firm. You
can reach Mieke by emailing her at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Dawn Jackson Blatner RD, LDN, is a 
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