While reading on the bed, the most common posture is to lie down with your back flat against the mattress and your head propped up by pillows. This can lead to a host of problems, including neck pain and headaches. What’s worse, it’s hard for you to relax this way!
Here are three tips for reading in the right posture while lying down:
1) Put a pillow under your head and neck
2) Read on your front
3) Sit up against at least two pillows
Sit up against at least two pillows
If you already have a good posture for reading, then just sit back on your bed with an upright position and make sure to lean against the headboard or wall behind you. If you are using recliners instead of beds, this may be difficult because they do not typically have headboards. Make sure that you are leaning back against something sturdy, like the wall or a headboard.
Have a pillow for your back, and one pillow curved lower down for lumbar support.
Read on your front
You can always try lying down on your stomach instead of your back if it is more comfortable for you! However, this position may lead to other problems, so be careful when doing it.
First, make sure that you are not putting too much weight on your stomach. While lying flat like this can be comfortable for some people, it is mainly recommended for children because they need to lie still while sleeping and cannot sit up by themselves.
For adults who want to try out the stomach-lying position, make sure to put a pillow under your stomach to keep the spine in a straight line. Also, try laying on a softer mattress if you want extra comfort while reading this way!
Put a pillow under your head and neck
If you are not comfortable with any of the above positions and you are lying on your back. Then put a pillow under your head and neck! It will be easy to fall asleep if this is all that you do in bed while reading, but luckily it’s also the most effective position.
You can use a pillow to prop up your back and create a curve in the spine that is much more comfortable than simply lying flat on your bed, especially if you’re going to do it for an extended time! This will also help relieve any neck or shoulder pain caused by reading while lying down.
Since sitting straight up against two pillows can be difficult while lying flat on your bed, try using a recliner instead! Recliners are very comfortable for reading in because they have headrests that will help you get into the perfect position.
Do you like to sit in bed at night and watch TV or maybe read a book? Did you know that sitting like this can create lower back pain? Open you up for herniations in the lower back, in the neck. It can even create sciatica. See, when you cross your legs like this, it stretches out the hip muscles when you do that, which destabilises your hip.
Also, sitting in a rounded position like this puts all of our weight and gravity down upon RSI joint. Now that’s where the lower part of your spine meets your hip bones. It’ll cause that to spread out, and then the nerves get compressed, and your glute sees up, and you can get sciatic pain from that. Additionally, looking down like this with no support of the head, stretches out the muscles in the neck and creates a Ford head position. That Ford head position can even cause migraines, neck herniations and just a whole lot of pain.
So what do you do about it? Here are some great ways to change this position. To make all these pains go away. First and foremost, get your legs uncrossed. Take a small pillow and put it under your knees.
When you do this, the bend in the knees takes the pressure off the hamstrings, pulling your hips under. That takes the pressure off the hips and Si joint, which reduces hip and lower back pain. Let’s give her some more help. She needs some support in the low back, like lumber support. Support your car, take a small pillow and round it over in the low back.
There you go now she’s got lumbar support. One thing left to go to support the neck. Now she can rest her head back, taking all this pressure and weight of gravity off of her neck, shoulders and low back, keeping that natural curve and her low back with lumbar support and reducing the pressure and uncrossing her legs. Help out one more thing. If you’re reading a book, this is another smart thing to do.
Grab another pillow. You only need 20 or 30 pillows on your bed, and you put it like this. Now she has a very nice position to rest. Her arms are also high. Miss the book up, so it creates a better sightline so she’s not looking down at it.
If you do these things when you’re watching TV or reading a book, you will significantly reduce the aches and pains in your neck and low back.