By Kreg Weiss, B HKin • January 2nd, 2011

Many people experience problems with acquiring proper, restful sleep.  We often associate this with direct causes like stress, anxiety, or diet.  Have you ever thought about your posture and, in particular, your head position being part of the reason for poor sleep habits?  Many chronic health symptoms we experience can actually be indirect results of maladies originating in seemingly unrelated areas of the body.

How poor head posture can adversely affect your sleep. 

As a society that shifts more and more into the classic seated chair posture, many people become unaware of the poor alignment that often sets in with the head and neck.  From a gravitational perspective, the head (and its’ weight) is meant to sit OVER the spine so the upper vertebra can take the load of the skull.  

Common poor posture sets in for most where the head draws forward of the spinal lines.  This places chronic tension on the entire neck – the rear aspect of neck tissues become tense and over-elongated – the neck curvature dissolves losing its’ ability to take skull loading – the front neck muscles also become undesirably strengthened – overall, a great imbalance of loading and muscle tension develops.  Result?  Neck pain! 

The other common side effect of head forward posture is we tend to shift into ‘mouth breathing’ over nostril breathing.  The combination of neck pain and mouth breathing has a direct affect on overall breathing.  Chronic pain as well as mouth breathing inhibits lower lung (diaphragm) breathing.  Inefficient breathing mechanics sets in where breathing is localized in the upper lungs (called apical breathing).

Apical breathing has a cascading effect – we start to breath more rapid and shallow.  This breath pattern increases our exhalation rate and thus the venting off of carbon dioxide (CO2).  CO2, when in the blood, exists primarily as an acid – if we vent off too much of CO2 (hence the ‘acid’), our blood pH moves into a more alkaline state.

Our hemoglobins’ ability to deliver oxygen to our tissues is enhanced in an acidic environment (at the tissue level) – this is called the Bohr Effect.  When our system becomes more alkaline (due to the increased venting of CO2), oxygen delivery by the hemoglobin is inhibited.  With less oxygen available to cell tissues, the tissues shift from an efficient aerobic respiration to more anaerobic respiration. 

Anaerobic respiration has been shown to increase the production and circulation of cortisol, a steroid hormone...

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Location:  Montreal, CA

Kreg is a co-founder of My Yoga Online and certified Hatha Yoga Teacher. Several years ago, Kreg discovered yoga while teaching health and fitness. Yoga dramatically transformed Kreg's approach to teaching health and...