IF YOU fall asleep on your back or your front, you may wish to shake things up.
Experts have claimed that sleeping on your left side can have health benefits, and it could help with heart, digestion and respiratory problems.
Sleep specialist W. Christopher Winter, MD, the medical director of the Martha Jefferson Hospital Sleep Medicine Center in Virginia, said left side sleeping can help the flow of blood to your heart.
He said that if you sleep on your right side, the pressure of your body push against the blood vessels that return blood to your heart.
He explained to CNN: “Sleeping on your left side with your right side not squished is supposed to potentially increase blood flow back to your heart.”
Rachel Salas, M.D., an associate professor of neurology at Johns Hopkins Medicine. agreed, saying: “If you suffer from heartburn, sleeping on your right side can make symptoms worse.”
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Meanwhile, John Douillard, who has been an Ayurvedic Practitioner for over 25 years, said left side sleeping can also help with digestion.
According to Ayuvedic – an Indian traditional system of medicine – the left side of the body is totally different from the right, which is why we often have pains on one side but not the other.
He said on his Lifespa.com website: "The stomach and the pancreas hang on the left side.
“When you lie on the left side, the stomach and pancreas hang naturally, allowing for optimal and efficient digestion."
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There are also health benefits for your liver too, he claimed.
“The liver and gallbladder hang on the right side”, John wrote.
“Resting on the left side allows them to hang freely and secrete precious bile, with the help of gravity, into the digestive tract to emulsify fats and neutralise the acids of the stomach."
And left side sleeping could also help with lymphatic drainage.
John said: "The left side of the body is the dominant lymphatic side. The majority of the body’s lymph fluid drains into the thoracic duct, located on the left side.
"Lymph fluid carrying proteins, glucose and other metabolites and waste products is purified by lymph nodes and is then drained into the left side of the heart.
"Because of this, it is common in Ayurveda to deduce that left side ailments may be due to chronic lymphatic congestion."
Even pregnant women can benefit from sleeping on their side.
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A British Medical Journal study found that women who slept on their left side were much less likely to experience stillbirth than back or right side sleepers.
The risk was reduced by as much as 50 per cent, and it is thought that when people sleep on their back, the weight of the abdomen presses on blood vessels and restricts oxygen supply to the baby.
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