- By: Sarah Cummings
- Date: 8/20/18
Best Sleeping Positions for Anterior Pelvic Tilt
Medical News published a study which suggests that as many as 85% of men and 75% of women, who do not show any symptoms of anterior pelvic tilt, such as pain, do, in fact, live with the issue.
Anterior pelvic tilt is brought on by sitting in excess or living a life with insufficient amounts of physical activity. Essentially, what we see if the shape of the spine and posture becoming affected, which can have a knock-on effect, leading to other issues.
Anterior pelvic tilt explained
Anterior tilt refers to the front of your pelvis making a tipped position that points towards the floor. Fortunately, this is not incurable, but can also be persevered with as it’s not a serious orthopaedic condition.
What you should understand is that it just means you have certain muscles positioning your pelvis so that the front end is lower than you would want it in the optimum, or ‘perfect’ position for a human being.
The result of APT is that it makes the lower region of your back more arched. If you stand side on in the mirror, you will notice that you have an over-pronounced curve in the small of your back, which is referred to as hyperlordosis.
Neutral pelvic position explained
Neutral pelvic position is when you have the ability to regulate the position of both your spine and pelvis in order to prevent compression of the lower back and halt movement issues in your hip joints too.
The model pelvic position we should all be striving for is a little tricky to define because we’re not all the same and our pelvic bones aren’t a ‘one-size-fits-all’ kind of thing.
So, based on the fact that it would be practically impossible to provide exact measurements that work for every individual, experts go on the notion that you should be able to position and stabilise your pelvis in whatever position you need to stabilise it in.
To explain this a little better, if you’re in anterior pelvic tilt already, you want to be able to engage your abs, glutes and hamstrings as a way of positioning the pelvis slightly more in posterior tilt and keep it there without the feeling of using mental and physical energy to achieve this!
Sleeping position and the effects on anterior pelvic tilt explained
Muscles; that’s what pelvic tilt’s all about. Your body’s muscles will excel at whatever you train and mould them to be effective for. So, if you’re always putting your pelvis into a position of anterior tilt, your muscles will, of course, get good at performing when in that posture.
Subsequently, your muscles will have learnt to be untrained in how to get you out of the anterior tilt position. So, if, when you are sleeping, your pelvis is in anterior tilt, all the muscles we mentioned that play a part in your posture will spend the whole night developing the ability to hold anterior tilt.
What does this mean? Well, if you hadn’t already realised, this translates to seven to nine hours of anterior pelvic tilt training, if you’re getting the nightly recommended amount of sleep. And, this is why it’s vital that you learn how to sleep with anterior pelvic tilt.
Sleeping positions with anterior pelvic tilt explained
Now, we can move on to how you can develop and improve your anterior tilt during sleeping hours. It’s basically a case of focusing on getting your pelvis into that neutral position we talked about.
If you’re a tend to sleep in the supine position (on your back), the simplest thing to do is to put a pillow under your knees. This puts your anteriorly tilted pelvis back into neutral.
If you tend to sleep in the prone position (on your stomach), you can put that pillow or blanket under your hips to reduce the curvature of your low back.
Lastly, if you usually opt to sleep in the prostration position (on your side), you should pay close attention to how you’ve set up position-wise. This is due to the fact that the main bulk of side sleepers naturally assume the foetal position (knees tucked up toward the chest); that’s absolutely ideal!
This position actually puts the pelvis and the lumbar spine into a more posterior/neutral position, so you’re on the right track here.
Sleeping positions to avoid with anterior pelvic tilt explained
We’ll keep this brief; you don’t want to put yourself in a position whereby you’re clearly worsening the anterior tilt.
For example, sleeping in prone position, and your stomach sinks into the bed, tipping your low back into lordosis is a big no-no as far as sleeping with anterior tilt is concerned.
Supine sleepers shouldn’t feel like there’s a big arch in the lower back region as that’s just not an optimal sleep position.
The key here is to find that neutral pelvis position sweet spot and then get your body accustomed to staying there each night.
Writer Sarah Cummings Bio
Hi! My name’s Sarah Cummings. I’ve been involved in writing informative and helpful guides for the last five years now. Originally, my passion to help others was the overriding factor to become a writer, but now I feel like I’m learning more everyday too!
My love of exercise has always been a big part of how I lead my life, and I find it helps with lots of things, including sleep. I’m an advocator of promoting sleep and how it can be the difference between living a good, fulfilled life and an unhappy one.
I have had the good fortune to have a long and spiritual background in yoga too, and I feel as though this pairs perfectly with my passion for healthy eating and leading an active lifestyle.
I enjoy learning and coming up with new ways to develop my writing so that I can help others to grow and learn too. When I have a spare morning, you can catch me gazing at sunrises from different places on the planet!
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