Did you go to sleep sitting up once more? Whether or not intentional or not, you’ve most likely achieved it on a recliner whereas watching TV or throughout lengthy flights, practice rides or automobile journeys.

Though your physique is designed to sleep in a horizontal place, sleeping sitting up isn’t at all times unhealthy for you. There are cases when this sleeping posture advantages your well being.

We wrote this text that will help you perceive when it’s advisable to sleep sitting upright and its drawbacks. We’ll additionally present suggestions for attaining this sleep place appropriately.

Key Takeaways

• Sleeping sitting up is a viable but non permanent possibility for alleviating signs of sure well being conditions, like sleep apnea, cardiac failure, acid reflux disease, respiratory points or late-stage being pregnant.

• Sleeping in a seated place has its drawbacks, together with much less time spent in restorative sleep phases (slow-wave and REM sleep), neck and again pressure, muscle stiffness and an elevated danger of deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

• When sleeping upright, use pillows for assist, keep an incline of 30- to 45-degrees, stretch each hour, and seek the advice of your physician for extra tailor-made suggestions.

Desk of Contents

• Is Sleeping Sitting Up Good or Dangerous?

• Advantages of Sleeping Whereas Sitting Upright

• Drawbacks of Sleeping in a Sitting Place

• How you can Sleep Upright if You Have to

• Conclusion

Is Sleeping Sitting Up Good or Dangerous?

The reply to this query isn’t absolute. There are advantages and disadvantages to sleeping upright. It helps alleviate signs of sure medical situations, aiding in higher sleep.

Nevertheless, it may possibly additionally result in fragmented sleep on account of temporary intervals of heightened mind exercise. This fragmentation reduces time spent within the slow-wave and speedy eye motion sleep phases, impacting your sleep high quality.

It is essential to notice that sleeping at a delicate incline is more healthy than sleeping totally upright. A examine printed in ResearchGate discovered that contributors who slept totally upright skilled shorter sleep period, extra frequent awakenings, and spent much less time in restorative sleep phases in comparison with those that reclined.⁽¹⁾

Sleeping upright can supply focused aid. Nevertheless, it ought to be a short lived resolution. The objective is to return to a totally horizontal place on a mattress as quickly as potential.

Advantages of Sleeping Whereas Sitting Upright

Sleeping in an upright place has its benefits. Listed below are a number of:

Helps With Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a situation characterised by the repetitive collapse of the pharyngeal airway to the again of the throat, inflicting respiratory pauses and loud loud night breathing.

Sleeping upright might assist forestall your tongue from collapsing to the again of your throat, decreasing airway blockages. A examine printed within the Nationwide Library of Drugs says that for this place to be efficient, your head ought to be at a 30-degree angle.⁽²⁾

Nevertheless, sleeping in a totally upright place might restrict the motion of your diaphragm, decreasing the quantity of air you inhale. It additionally doesn’t present your throat’s smooth tissues with even assist. The strain in your airways could make inhalation tough.

So, should you determine to sleep sitting as much as relieve your sleep apnea signs, guarantee your head and torso are at a minimal of a 30-degree angle. It’s going to assist hold your airway open and assist you to relaxation comfortably.

Eases the Signs of Acid Reflux

Sleeping upright additionally helps alleviate acid reflux disease and gastroesophageal reflux illness (GERD).

Gravity prevents gastric contents from flowing again to the esophagus because of the elevation of your head and chest. Whenever you sleep sitting upright, it reduces your probability of experiencing heartburn.

This posture additionally makes it straightforward to clear saliva or regurgitated abdomen acid that makes its method up the esophagus, stopping coughing or choking. That mentioned, it additionally reduces the danger of throat irritation on account of power acid publicity.

Might Assist People With Coronary heart Failure

Sleeping in a reclining place is a standard apply for individuals with coronary heart failure.

Whenever you sleep mendacity in your again (or within the supine posture), gravity helps blood out of your legs and stomach to simply circulate again to your coronary heart. This circulate will increase the amount of blood that your left ventricle must pump. Nevertheless, when your trunk is reclined at a 30- to 45-degree angle, a few of that blood strikes downward, lowering the workload in your coronary heart.

Sufferers with cardiac failure expertise breathlessness due to fluids that again up into the lungs. Sleeping at an incline prevents these fluids from pooling in your airway and as an alternative within the base of your lungs, making it simpler to breathe and go to sleep.

Helps You Breathe Simpler When Sick

Tilting your torso at a 30- to 45-degree angle permits gravity to clear mucus out of your sinuses and nasal passages. This angle makes respiratory simpler once you’re congested or have a post-nasal drip.

It additionally helps with lung growth in comparison with once you sleep flat in your again, the place the stomach organs press upwards. Sleeping semi-upright prevents your diaphragm and chest partitions from overworking in opposition to the organs, permitting you to breathe extra simply.

Whereas sleeping in a sitting place isn’t the greatest sleeping place for respiratory issues, it might supply non permanent aid.

Offers Extra Consolation within the Late Levels of Being pregnant

It may be difficult to relaxation comfortably, not to mention get a superb night time’s sleep throughout the third trimester.

Sleeping with the higher physique and torso at a 30- to 40-degree angle helps cut back heartburn and acid reflux disease. The uterus grows throughout being pregnant, and it may possibly push abdomen acid again up into your esophagus. Gravity helps hold abdomen acid down.

This sleeping posture when pregnant additionally places much less pressure on the diaphragm, leading to deeper and fuller breaths. It is also helpful for blood circulation because it eases the burden off the inferior vena cava, the vein accountable for returning blood from the decrease physique. Sleeping in a reclined posture additionally helps forestall leg and foot swelling.

The infant’s weight can pressure the pelvis and decrease again. Sleeping upright with supportive pillows helps keep a impartial backbone alignment.

Sleeping upright is only one of a number of sleeping positions whereas pregnant. Sleeping on the left facet is taken into account the most secure and greatest sleeping place.

Drawbacks of Sleeping in a Sitting Place

Now let’s talk about the downsides of sleeping in an upright posture.

Might Trigger Neck and Again Issues

Sleeping in a sitting place requires you to carry your head upright whereas sleeping, which retains your neck extensor muscle tissue engaged when they need to be relaxed. Over time, sleeping in the identical place could cause them to lose muscle tone, which will increase the danger of waking up with a sore neck.

A sitting place flattens the pure curve of your decrease again. The lumbar vertebrae flex, which overstretches the encircling muscle tissue and ligaments. Completed often, this may occasionally trigger power again ache, probably harming your sleep high quality.

May Lead to Muscle Stiffness and Soreness

It’s difficult to shift positions when sleeping in a seated posture. Holding the identical pose all through the night time slows down blood circulation within the muscle tissue. It reduces the supply of blood and vitamins to muscle fibers, inflicting discomfort.

Sustaining the identical posture additionally impacts the joints in your backbone, shoulders and hips. With out motion, synovial fluid can’t lubricate the surfaces of those joints, which causes them to lock in place. With the primary motion upon waking, your muscle tissue stretch too rapidly, leading to that stiff feeling.

Sleeping whereas sitting upright could make sustaining a impartial backbone alignment tough. Typically, your head tilts ahead or to at least one facet on account of inadequate assist. This misalignment can pressure side joints and ligaments, resulting in stiffness upon awakening and radiating shoulder ache.

Sitting shifts your weight onto the sit bones and tailbone. The muscle tissue round these areas should stay tense in opposition to the fixed strain, resulting in soreness within the decrease again, lat muscle tissue and glutes.

Enhance Your Threat of Deep Vein Thrombosis

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a blood clot that types in a deep vein in your physique (often within the legs or pelvis). This blood clot can impede the blood circulate in your vein both partially or totally.

The Cleveland Clinic states that deep vein thrombosis can develop into life-threatening in circumstances the place the blood clot travels to the lungs, inflicting a pulmonary embolism.⁽³⁾

Sitting for lengthy intervals, together with when asleep, reduces the effectivity of the calf muscle’s pump, lowering the circulate of blood again to the guts. Your veins are compressed additional when your knees are sharply bent with out foot assist. Blood swimming pools in your decrease extremities, growing the danger of blood clot formation. The pooled blood can even irritate your vein’s inside lining, which may velocity up blood clot progress.

How you can Sleep Upright if You Have to

In case you should slumber sitting upright, listed below are some basic tricks to make it a sensible and comfy place for sleep:

• Use a 10- to 12-inch wedge pillow or an adjustable mattress for a delicate incline. Consultants suggest a 30- to 45-degree angle.

• In case you use a recliner, the backrest ought to be agency to assist your torso however cushioned to keep up the pure curve of your decrease again.

• Use a contoured cervical pillow to forestall your head from tilting ahead and assist your neck’s pure curve. A lumbar roll positioned beneath the small of your again helps keep spinal curvature and cut back slouching.

• Elevate your legs at about 4 to six inches to make sure a wholesome circulate of blood out of your legs again to your coronary heart. This may additionally assist forestall swelling.

• Stabilize your head and shoulders with an adjustable head strap or headrest to forestall your head from tilting ahead. You can too use a pillow that wraps round your neck, reminiscent of Manta Journey Pillow, to forestall your head from falling sideways.

• Stand up to maneuver and stretch each 60 minutes. Whereas this may occasionally interrupt your slumber, it’s going to assist cut back muscle stiffness and soreness.

• Hydrate earlier than going to mattress. It retains your tissues pliable and prevents cramping.

• Preserve good sleep hygiene. Set up a constant sleep routine and schedule, and hold your bed room cool, quiet and darkish. In case you’re questioning find out how to make your bed room darker, a superb light-blocking sleep masks ought to do the trick. In the meantime, earplugs or a white noise machine can block disruptive environmental sounds.

• Seek the advice of your physician in case you have medical situations, particularly coronary heart points, circulation issues, GERD or power ache. A sleep drugs specialist may help with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Each can supply customized remedy and recommendation.

Conclusion

Sleeping sitting up will be helpful when horizontal sleeping on a mattress isn’t potential or advisable.

Sleeping upright helps in sure conditions like congestion, sleep apnea, acid reflux disease, coronary heart failure, and late-stage being pregnant. It could additionally trigger muscle soreness and stiffness, in addition to neck and again points, and deep vein thrombosis (DVT). Nevertheless, with steerage out of your physician and our suggestions, sleeping in a sitting posture may help you keep comfy whereas getting a superb night time’s sleep.

We hope this text gave you the data it is advisable to make sleeping in a sitting place be just right for you. Tell us if it did by commenting beneath.

Sources:  

(1) “Flat-out napping: The amount and high quality of sleep obtained in a seat throughout the daytime enhance because the angle of recline of the seat will increase.” ResearchGate, www.researchgate.web/publication/325704619_Flat-out_napping_The_quantity_and_quality_of_sleep_obtained_in_a_seat_during_the_daytime_increase_as_the_angle_of_recline_of_the_seat_increases. Accessed 06 June 2025.

(2) “The Potential Impact of Altering Affected person Place on Loud night breathing: A Systematic Evaluate.” Nationwide Library of Drugs, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11277951/. Accessed 06 June 2025.

(3) “Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT).” Cleveland Clinic, my.clevelandclinic.org/well being/ailments/16911-deep-vein-thrombosis-dvt. Accessed 06 June 2025.

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