Sleeping With Shoulder Pain: Stop Your Shoulder From Hurting08:48

If you experience chronic shoulder pain at night, it can make sleep rather difficult. You may find yourself waking up a lot throughout the night, or maybe you find falling asleep at all rather difficult. No matter what, experiencing pain at night (in your shoulder or elsewhere) can have a negative effect on your overall health and wellness.

If you are experiencing regular pain in your shoulder(s), it is important to figure out why you are experiencing that pain. Then find a solution as quickly as possible.

In this article, you will find an in-depth look into just why you may be sleeping with shoulder pain and some solutions to help prevent more pain in the future. The good news is that there are several possible solutions, so you should be able to find one that works for you.

How to Stop Your Shoulder From Hurting When You Sleep?

So how do you stop shoulder pain from occurring while you are asleep? Well, there are a couple of different things that you can do. A good place to start is with your sleeping posture. When you are asleep, you need to make sure that your shoulder has the right kind of support without any excessive pressure on it.

Both changing up your sleeping position and ensuring you have the right kind of mattress/pillows can be helpful. Doing so should minimize your shoulder pain and allowing you to sleep well throughout the night. You will find more information about all these different strategies below.

Can You Relieve Rotator Cuff Pain While Sleeping at Night?

A rotator cuff is a group of tendons that surround the shoulder joint. They attach the end of your upper arm to your shoulder joint. The rotator cuff is extremely important, but it is also a common source of shoulder pain.

Injuries happen all the time when the cuff gets inflamed, irritated, or even torn partially or completely. When the pain in your shoulder is due to a rotator cuff injury, it is important to both seek treatment and adjust your sleeping position. As far as sleeping position goes, you need to avoid sleeping on the affected shoulder.

The best solution is to sleep on your back, but even sleeping on your stomach could be better than sleeping on your injured shoulder.

In order to promote healing, it is also important to keep a regular sleep schedule. This can be hard when you are in pain, but you want to avoid making it worse. As mentioned above, sleep is a really important part of your physical health. If you are not getting enough sleep, it could significantly extend the time it takes for your rotator cuff to heal.

How do Sleep Trackers Work? Are They Accurate?

What Can Cause Shoulder Pain While Sleeping?

There are a number of different conditions that can cause shoulder pain, which will be discussed later on in this article, but what makes it worse while you are sleeping?

The primary problem at night is that there is too much pressure on your shoulder, and/or it is out of alignment. When you sleep on your shoulder, it ends up bearing a lot of your body’s weight, which is a lot of pressure for one muscle or joint to handle. This pressure tends to create too much stress, prohibit circulation, or even push your shoulder out of alignment.

On the other hand, when you lay on your stomach or back, while there is not as much pressure on the shoulder, and may still be going unsupported and therefore remain in an unnatural, unaligned position. All of these issues are enough to cause shoulder pain on their own, but if you are experiencing pain for another reason, these problems can be significantly worse.

Can Sleeping on Your Side Cause Shoulder Pain?

Sleeping on your side with your shoulder unsupported might be one of the worst positions for your shoulder. This position puts lots of additional stress, and your shoulder becomes the main, weight-bearing point for your body.

If you are a side sleeper and you are not interested in changing sleep positions, there are some things that you can do to make this position better for you.

First, if possible, avoid sleeping on your bad shoulder if one is worse than the other. Second, you want to make sure you use pillows to support both the shoulder you are sleeping on and the shoulder on top. There is more information on how you can use pillows for added support below.

Remember that your sleeping position, even if you sleep on your side, is often only part of the problem. Often a condition, like one of the ones listed in the next section, is a big part of the problem. For that reason, it is important to identify and address those problems as well, often with a doctor or physical therapist.

However, no matter what the cause of your pain, being cognizant of your sleeping position and making sure that your shoulder is properly supported through the night is bound to provide you with some level of relief.

Understanding the Causes of Shoulder Pain

It is important to understand the cause of shoulder pain beyond simply your sleeping position, if there is one. Often you have to address the underlying issue for the change in position to really be as successful. Below is a description of six of the most common conditions that may lead to shoulder pain.

For an actual diagnosis, you do need to go see a professional doctor or physical therapist. However, starting with your sleeping position could help save you some money if it works for you.

Bursitis: Bursitis, or more specifically, shoulder bursitis, is what happens when the bursae (small sacs of fluid that cushion your joints) get overly inflamed. This can cause swelling, redness, stiffness, tenderness, and aches.

Tendonitis: Tendonitis is usually caused by repetitive use that results in inflammation. In the shoulder, tendonitis means that the tendons that are attaching your muscles to your bones are inflamed and irritated. This pain is usually worse at night and also often causes stiffness.

Rotator Cuff Injuries: We already talked about rotator cuff injuries above, but put them on this list as well because it is such a common cause of shoulder pain.

Impingement Syndrome: Shoulder impingement occurs when the soft tissues that are around your rotator cuffs rub against tissue or bone. This rubbing can be caused by swelling, inflammation, bone spurs, etc., and leads to pain and weakness that can be worse at night.

Osteoarthritis: This happens when the cartilage that cushions your bones begins to break down at your joints. The pain tends to start when you move but eventually can worsen to the point where it is severe when you are resting or sleeping.

Frozen Shoulder: Frozen shoulder occurs when the connective tissue in the shoulder joint thickens. It tends to be worse at night and in the evenings, which makes sleep more difficult.

Quick Tips to Relieve Shoulder Pain

Best Mattresses for Sleeping with Shoulder Pain

When you are experiencing any kind of pain while sleeping, it could be due to the fact that your mattress is not providing you with enough support. Different kinds of pain sometimes need different kinds of mattresses. For shoulder pains, you have a couple of different options. Some people prefer a firm memory foam mattress.

On the other hand, Bob and Brad specifically recommend the Sleep Ovation mattresses that have special springs that you can not feel but provide lots of support. In the end, you just need a relatively firm, supportive mattress. If you can test a couple out and figure out what works for you, that would be best.

Sleeping Positions for Shoulder Pain Relief

Sleeping on your back is really the best position to sleep with shoulder pain. Overall there is not a lot of stress or pressure on your shoulders when you are sleeping on your back. Even if you are a side sleeper if you can twist slightly to put a little more pressure on your back and can provide a lot of support.

On the other hand, the worst position for shoulder pain is sleeping on your stomach. Sleeping on your stomach forced you to put your arms in an uncomfortable position, such as over your head, which can cause a lot of pain. In fact, some people advise attaching a tennis ball to the front of your shirt to make sleeping on your stomach completely uncomfortable. With a tennis ball under your chest, you will not stay turned over on your stomach, even in your sleep.

No matter what position you are sleeping in, it could be really beneficial for you to use pillows to help provide extra support. Bob Schrup and Brad Heineck have a number of different suggestions for how you can do that.

If you are a side sleeper, it is most important that you support the shoulder you sleep on. To do this, you should put two pillows (or one thick pillow) beneath your head and another beneath your ribcage (a throw pillow or square pillow is generally the best kind for your ribcage.)

This should create a trough of sorts for your shoulder to lay in. The pressure will then be divided along the entirety of your side and away from your shoulder, decreasing stress, increasing circulation, and therefore relieving pain. Keeping your elbow extended through the night can also help when sleeping in this position.

If you need to support your shoulder on top as well, you will need another two pillows that you can stack beside your body. From there, you can lay your arm on the pillows throughout the night to support your shoulder.

There is a chance that you will move, but even a short time with your shoulder supported will help decrease pain, and with time your body will learn that staying in that position is beneficial and therefore move less through the night. You can also keep your arm supported on your side, but it is more likely to move when in that position.

Finally, if you are laying on your back, you could still benefit from using a pillow for extra support. By placing one or two underneath your arms, you will prevent them from having to lay in an unnatural position for too long.

Using pillows for your arms will also likely make sleeping on your back more comfortable overall, which can help you get away from side or stomach sleeping.

Minimize Shoulder Pain via Testing

So we have gone over lots of ways you could potentially help solve shoulder pain in your sleep, but how do you know which one works for you? Well, the level of pain you feel when you wake up is a good indicator. However, it should not be the sole contributor to your decision.

You want to make sure that you are getting enough sleep, and a good way to do that is with sleep trackers, such as the Fitbit Charge. The Fitbit Charge 4 provides you with data about how much you are sleeping, how many times you are waking up, and how much time you are spending in a deep sleep.

With this data, you will be able to figure out which configuration of pillows, sleeping position, etc., provides you with the best night of sleep. Having actual data that you can use for measurement is the best way to confirm that you are getting the best sleep possible.

Apple Watch vs Fitbit: Which is better?

There are other sleep trackers on the market besides the Fitbit Charge, but whatever you decide to get, you want to make sure that it tracks how much you sleep, how many times you wake up, and tracks your different sleep stages. The more information you have, the more informed decisions you will be able to make.

Get the latest Fitbit Charge Sleep Tracker!

Conclusion

Attempting to sleep with shoulder pain can range from uncomfortable to unbearable. Still, either end of the spectrum can prevent you from sleeping throughout the night. Furthermore, when you are not getting enough sleep, you will start to have problems beyond just your shoulder. For this reason, it is really important to start using the different methods listed above and protect your shoulder so you can protect your health, physically and emotionally.